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Confidence & Faith



Today is Thursday. I'm writing my Friday Reflection one day early. It is late afternoon slipping quickly into evening. I sit in Room 202, the sound of the air-conditioner humming in the background, silence around me otherwise.

I will not be in school on Friday. There will be a substitute teacher taking care of my students for the day. It will be the first time this year that my students will tackle the day without me. It's a day of many activities on the agenda.

They will be taking their Selection Test for the story, "Marven of the Great North Woods" along with their spelling test on the laptops. Of course, the Basic Math Fact Test will also be taken with paper & pencil. They will learn about fire safety in our 2nd week of the "Learn Not to Burn" lessons given by the Elmhurst Fire Department. They will have Spanish and Gym. They will complete Reading work and grade math homework. To end their day they will be practicing a "Secure in Place" drill. Quite an agenda, I'd say.

I took some time today to review the schedule for the day so that they themselves would know what to expect from their day. We talked briefly about how it is their job to "run" the classroom in terms of the logistics...in terms of how things proceed on any given Friday.

There's is old saying that hangs behind my desk in my classroom. It sits quietly beneath a picture of some students from my first year of teaching. The students are completing a somewhat difficult task all by themselves, without any help from me. The saying underneath the picture reads, "The object of teaching a child is to enable them to get along without their teacher." -- Elbert Hubbard

I have confidence, faith if you will, that my current 25 students will take the responsibility I have placed in thier path for this Friday seriously...and make the room run...make it hum...make it work...make it on their own; without their teacher.

Come Monday, when I walk into the classroom, I'm sure I'll find a note from the substitute; I always do. And I have always read the note to my students...whatever it may be. I will do the same this year. There's nothing finer than reading a note from a substitute that shows the confidence and faith that I had placed in my students was, indeed, well placed.

Mr. Casten

Sept. 19, 2013

Copyrighted material of Michael C. Casten

 

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