Notes from public school - day 36

This afternoon, I’ve been thinking about my students and school.

In what I call “right side up thinking,” it makes sense to think they don’t like it.

In what I call “upside down thinking,” it makes sense to think they do.

I am an “upside down” thinker.

I see the world with my eyes, think about it with my brain, feel it in my heart, touch it with my hands, feet and words...and often realize what I experienced as right side up is really upside down and what I experienced as upside down is really right side up.

I wish you could’ve been with me today in an IEP meeting that became a parent conference.

The mom came here with her son to South Carolina from Puerto Rico in 2017.

Her son is in my classroom.

When I told her how much I love being her son’s teacher, how well he is doing in math, how hard he is working, how well behaved he is...her face lit up like the morning sky.

“Muchas gracias for teaching him,” she whispered, “Muchas gracias.”

“Many thanks for raising him,” I whispered back. “Many thanks.”

“We’re raising him together,” she said.

And the upside down thought came to me.

The students and their families at my school see our school as a sanctuary...as a place where they can be safe...as a place where they can learn and teach...as a place where they can become all they can become.

As a place where we can raise each other together.