Giving back.

The day before Thanksgiving I received an email. Let me back up a bit. Amy and I were talking one day and she mentioned that she had asked her co-op for a recommendation letter. I said "oh thats such a good idea," I really didn't. I just remembered my last day in the classroom.

My last day I was finishing a lesson on an article on insanity that the students had to read than talk about their annotations. We then took an insanity verbal quiz that they loved! (Why didn't I think of this before!) Sam, who became one of my most memorable students because I got her to get out her comfort    was really into this insanity quiz and was participating a lot. I loved that! She never participated with my co-op and here every other question she raised her hand and share. And at one point, another student Brooke (who was so funny) said out loud, come on Sam, this is a safe classroom." Then the whole class started cheering for Sam. That is ACE! Meaning amazing for the class to be so supportive. There was one answer that Sam did not want to answer because it was about naming a certain possession of hers; her bike. EVeryone was curious and eager to know what she named her bike. It was great and funny after we all heard it, even my co-op who was not in the circle discussion was curious to know. That felt great! Oh, how I loved that week. I brought in Oreo and chocolate chip cookies that everyone, literally everyone had. It was nice.

Anyway, back to the day before Thanksgiving. After the conversation with Amy, I always had that in back of my mind, to email my co-op and get a recommendation letter from him, but always forgot when I was on my email or got too busy with other work. So then the day before Thanksgiving, I got an email from my co-op!!! The subject on the email said "Happy Thanksgiving." I got so excited! It said:
Dear Nelly, 

I wanted to thank you for the great gifts (books) for the kids and for the thoughtful note you wrote. I'd like to think we in education can find the right way to entice someone with as much to give as you can to stay in the field. If you need a letter of support or recommendation please let me know and I will take care of it."

Isn't that nice! It is all about giving back. And thats my lesson.