One Little Word

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."

-John Barrymore

At the beginning of the semester, Syd told us to pick a word. It could be a word of something that you want to work on, or a word you currently were feeling. I chose the word Happiness. I chose happiness because it was something that I needed to work on coming into this semester. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, so happiness is something I struggle with and strive for all the time. Over the years, I have been able to find happiness, but it something that I continually have to work on. Coming into this semester, I was dealing with a lot of personal issues and finding happiness was extremely difficult, so I chose to have happiness be my word to work on for the semester. 

Also at the beginning of the semester, Syd told us that before the beginning of every class we were to write a word on the board to describe how we were feeling for that particular day. After writing our word on the board, we were supposed to write our words in our interactive notebooks.

I did a pretty decent job keeping up on writing my word on the board and in my notebook until around Spring Break. After that I seemed to forget about my one little word. There were days when I would remember, and when I did I would put it on the board and write it in my notebook.

Now looking at the end of the semester, I am able to judge how my semester went. I can see that most of the semester I was either happy or stressed. My overall word was happiness, and I think that I have come a long way with happiness throughout this semester. I definitely still have a long way to go, but I am proud of the progress I have seen within myself this semester.

I think that having your students write down how they are feeling for the day is a great idea! It allows the teacher to get a feel for how her students are doing. It also allows the teacher to make adjustments to her lessons if need be. For instance, if Syd can see that we are all energized on a particular day, she won't make us sit there and listen to a lecture. Instead, she would have us doing something more engaging that would use some of our energy. I think that this also helps build a community within your classroom. It is something that I would definitely like to have in my future classroom.



Social Studies Blog Post #12