Story from the Field

I had a fantastic day in the field today. The grade eights were reading the spooky stories they wrote. Over the past few weeks helping them write their stories, I told them I still have the one I wrote when I was their age. They wanted me to bring it today, so I did. They were so excited to hear my story, and they thought it was great! Mr. K and I took turns reading the grade eight stories aloud to the group. One student, T, I’ve worked with quite a bit these past four weeks. Today I feel like I finally had a breakthrough. This was all thanks to Pickleball. In gym class, they had an odd number of people for Pickleball, so I played with students off to the side who rotated in and out of playing on the courts. For a while, T and I rallied and tried to get each other to miss the ball. I think maybe he started to trust me, or perhaps just thought, “Hey, she’s not half bad.” Whatever it was helped in Math class the next hour. I sat and helped T as I had before, but this time it was different. He was willing to work on his math. I walked him through the first few problems, and after that, he started to understand it. It was so awesome to see his progress, and we got far more work done than we had ever gotten before. When class was over, I gave T a high five and said we are like a dynamic duo. Tonight, T came to my house trick or treating. I answered the door, and he said: “Hey, you helped me with math today.” I was so excited to hear him say that. Other students who have seen me around the school came trick or treating said things like “I think I know you,” which was funny and cute.

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The title page of my story I wrote when I was in Grade 8!