Gratitude

Above I have a picture of my students about to jump into a pile of leaves. This is my reminder of gratitude for this year. Every year, our 8th grade students go and rake leaves of people's yards who are not able to do so as a service project. This is my third year doing it with them and I'm always surprised with how well it goes. Every year, I'm always a little worried because the class we are taking is my toughest class or the kids aren't buying in to the whole service project thing when we go over the info or it's Thursday and we have no rakes for the next day brought in or we are the only people at our two houses so hopefully everything goes smoothly since I can't be everywhere in the yards at once. And every year, I have those worries but it ends up being one of my favorite days. It's a day where I get to just be with my kids for a whole afternoon and we get to rake leaves and jump into them and then get to work.

This year, I was especially worried because my 7th hour is my most rambunctious and there were a lot of comments of "why are we doing this if we aren't getting anything from it?" and it's also a big class. But they pulled it together and it was an amazing day! I was able to watch my kids work together to accomplish tasks(either bagging leaves, maneuvering a tarp to push leaves on the street, or just do odd jobs around the farm we go to). Many of the kids were a huge surprise with how much they did when we were out - I swear two of my boys who don't do much in class, raked half of the first lawn we were at! I'm so grateful for the qualities in my students that make a classroom environment a little harder but when we do things like this, they excel. I did have to clarify for a few kids that the people we are helping aren't able to do this themselves, so we might be doing it for nothing but it's a good deed. Once they saw the owner of the first house, I think it hit home for them. I'm so grateful for days like this where I get to see my students in a different light and I get to see just how well they do come together to get something done. And I found out that some actually listen, since they came up to me and said "she offered us water, but we said we couldn't take it cause it's a service project, like you told us" lol. Overall, I need to remember that the day always goes well and I'm so grateful that I get this time with my kids each year.