Teaching is a thankless job. We pour our hearts out for our students and sometimes even sacrifice our own personal health in the process. That is why just a tiny bit of validation is the perfect treatment for a case of the unappreciated teacher blues.
Some of you know that I have a severe mild obsession with lapbooks. My students learn early on that cutting, pasting, and folding are prerequisites to my class. We make a lapbook or some type of interactive book to accompany just about every topic of study. Lapbooks are such wonderful learning tools, but let’s face it. They do require a ton of time to plan, prepare, and implement. Time that is sacrificed after school and at home on nights and weekends. Time and effort that makes you tired, but is worth it in the end.
This, my friends, is a piece of teacher validation that landed on my desk last week. You can probably imagine the delight I experienced when one of my students presented me with this work in process that she had created on her own, at home. This was not an assignment. I repeat. It was not an assignment.
Check out the detail work she put into this lapbook! The layout and folds give me a chuckle because they so closely resemble the design and style of the lapbooks I create for my class. Plus, the grubby little fingerprints all over the lapbook (see below) are just precious and are a true testament to the hard work put in by this student, during her own free time!
It means so much to me that I have impacted a student in this way. This is the exact validation I needed to recharge my batteries for the third marking period.
I am now sending wishes through cyberspace that some validation will land on your desk this week!
