I'm a Teacher!

The classroom is quiet.  The kids have gone home.  I'm sitting here eating my almonds and looking out over the room.  I love seeing the "aftermath" of a great day:  new writing hanging up on the Writing Pride wall, all GREEN cards looking at me from the behavior chart, things put back in the actual places they belong, and a nice stack of papers for me to check.  The room is now empty, but I can still hear the voices of little learners coming to me with their work held up in my face, asking me to look at what they accomplished.  I smile at the thought of my little mover & shaker sitting still for 24 minutes and busily completing his work.  I've never seen such a look of concentration on his face.  When he finished I praised him for such great work and asked him how he felt.  "I feel pretty good!" he replied.  I gush at the moment today when members of our classroom started to tell another student that they "believed he could do it" when the student was feeling he had enough work for the day.  I grin at the thought of my little girl who has such a hard time sharing offering her snack to a student who came without today.  Yes, she offered because she "hates those darn cheese things," but the fact is: she SHARED.  It's days like these when I look around the room after the kids have gone home, smile and I think, "Yup.  I'm a teacher."