RefinED Character is an educational consulting company specializing in social emotional development for preK-12 and collegiate communities.

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I Ran Into My Third Grade Teacher the Other Day

Posted by Scott Heydt on Thursday, March 13, 2014

RefinED Friends,

So there I was just last week, co-facilitating resiliency training for a group of fourth graders. I glanced across the gymnasium and noticed a familiar face. My third grade teacher! 

When I reached 99% certainty it was her, I called her name. She eventually put two-and-two together who I was, and we caught up for a few minutes during a break in the action. Needless to say, we both felt old in our own ways.

Part of feeling old is reminiscing, so today I dug my 3rd grade yearbook from the attic vault. Here are some observations:

  • 21 students in my class that year (most teachers now would kill for a class that small)
  • Bangs were in! (at least for the girls)
  • Stripes were also in. Boys and girls were throwing horizontal and vertical stripes all over the page. Even the teacher had on stripes!
  • I am awkwardly placed in the center of my class page, collared shirt completely buttoned up and hair tussled
  • Remember the side ponytail from Napoleon Dynamite? Yeah, one girl in my class rocking that.
  • There is one photo of a female classmate (who will remain nameless) next to which I scribed, “She’s cute” with an arrow. This same student’s signature, on the front page, is conspicuously circled in the same color pen with which I wrote, “She’s cute.”
  • On a previous page, not in my handwriting, someone scribed “Josh loves Rachel” with an arrow pointing to Rachel (I’m guessing the handwriting is Josh’s)
  • So many of "us" look like students I have taught in my own classroom
  • My teacher was the only one to include a smiley face (the 80's emoticon) with her signature
Some of those faces from that class I still see via Facebook. Some have faded away from my circles. What links us all back together, though, is our teacher that year. A teacher still changing the lives of young men and women. Thanks, Mrs. K.!

~Scott
scott@refinedcharacter.com


Tags: "third grade" teaching teacher students "the 80s" "napoleon dynamite" bangs yearbook resiliency "fourth grade" 

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