Tales of a Second Grade Morah Part 7: Parting Thoughts

I hope I have imparted much knowledge and great wisdom in the hearts and minds of my many students, allowing them to go forth into the world as great scholars, or at least great young men who carry with them fond memories of when they were budding geniuses in Mrs. Kryksman’s second-grade class! I hope they emerged not only a year older, but a bit smarter, more confident in their abilities, and more cognizant of their inner talents and self-worth.

This is quite a tall order, especially when a typical class is filled with students who are so diverse, each one so unique. Nevertheless, we teachers are up for the challenge! We learn to recognize each student’s strengths as well as weaknesses. We manage to work with them and help them grow.

One of the things I do at the end of each year is to write a class poem. In my poem, I write a few lines about each and every boy in my class. I started this many years ago when due to a family emergency I could not be with my class at the end of the year. Wanting to wish them well, I decided to write them a letter, which turned into a poem. Over the years, this became a tradition in my class. Throughout the years what started out as short poems became longer poems, as I found I had a lot to say about each boy.

What always amazes me about these humorous but incisive rhymes, is what I have learned from them. I have learned that each and every boy, be he the most angelic, or the most “troublesome,” has amazing and redeeming qualities which make him special! It is quite fascinating to me that I always find good things to say about each boy, even the ones who might have caused the most trouble or the most disruption in the classroom! Thus my poems have taught me a lot, as have my students!

In my poems, humor is the key element. Even when writing about a student’s “weakness,” it can be done in a funny way. We all have to learn to laugh at ourselves sometimes. When your students know you love them and care about them, they are able to appreciate the good intent behind the joke.

For example, about a student who had trouble staying in his seat I wrote, “He sits in the front of his row, although,/Was he facing front or back?/It was sometimes hard to keep track!” Saying something positive I included, “Math is the subject he likes best/He also likes to joke and jest.” (Intuitively, the boys were able to grasp the unspoken but implied lesson, that joking and jesting are fine, at the proper time and place!)

Then there was the student who had much trouble controlling his impulses but was a great monitor. “He was my right-hand man/Helping his Morah whenever he can. /…You may not have realized/That he is quite organized,/Putting things away/In my closet each day…He took care of our plants dutifully, /And his bean plant grew beautifully!”

Even though these boys may have given me a “run for my money,” and even though disciplining them, let alone teaching them, was sometimes quite a challenge, I realized, as I wrote their poems, that there were quite a few positive things I could write about, all of them just as true as the trouble they may have caused or gotten into.

Children know intuitively when you truly care about them. I’d like to think that is the reason I have former students coming to my room to visit me each day. Some of them open the door just to wave and say hello. Some of them actually come into my room and reminisce about their time in my class, remembering where they sat, and actually sitting down for a few minutes to relax! Some of them, of course, are hungry, and ask for a cookie!

When a former student tells me I was his best teacher, it makes my job that much more meaningful and that much more worthwhile. Helping to shape these students in their formative years has been, and still is, a rewarding and worthwhile learning experience, not only for my students but for me as well!