Words cannot adequately capture the times that I've had with my students in room 105 at John B. Kelly Elementary School over the years! Each day was an adventure where some of the routines were the same but the experiences that would accompany those routines were unscripted, unexpected, and ultimately unforgettable!
As a teacher of English/Language Arts (my primary assignment for the last six years), it is easy to get into the same old, mundane, trite rituals and routines of the literacy block. But when I started referring to it as the "L-Block", when random foods were brought in to accompany the reading, when "Flem Flem" (my in-class rapper stage name...lol) busted out of no where or when I got my "Reverend" on while teaching, 105 transformed into more than just a room number!
105 became the room where EVERYTHING "popped." "105 get it poppin" became the chant! oNe Oh FIvE became synonymous with literary experiences to be remembered for a life-time; where "to become better readers we......READ.....we don't.....SWIM" (ALL CAPS indicate the class' choral response to my prompts) It became a place where kids wanted to come; where they wanted to learn; where announcements, meaningless assemblies, and the house phone all got in the way!
But make no mistake either. 105 was also a place to get tough love from a teacher who cared. Students were often sent to 105 for a little "Flem time". Where young boys needed to hear that we're not here for foolishness and games and that it "bet not" happen again that they need to be sent to 105. It became a place where young ladies needed to hear that they can go places in life and that acting a fool wasn't how to get there.
Ahhh yes! 105!
The thing is, there are "105"s all across the district, city, state, and country. Places where students are welcome to come, to be wrong and learn safely, to get the attention they crave, to hear what others didn't want to tell them yet need to be told, a place where the teacher will fight with all his strength and power and stop the sun, if he could, to give what his kids need to get, an education from someone who is knowledgeable and who cares!
As we sleep a little longer, clean out "that" closet, finally get to those stacks of papers, spend more time with our spouses and kids, all the while looking up resources for next year, and fighting for school funding that doesn't involve teachers' salaries being the solution, rest up! On September 9, 2013, there will be 30 (or more) smiling boys and girls or 5 classes of 30 (or more) sleepy teenagers that are coming. How will we ensure that our classrooms are places where they are welcomed? How will they know we care about them? How will we ensure that our classes "pop" with rich and meaningful teaching and learning experiences?
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