Today one of my mostly nonverbal kids and student who has a hard time communicating and usually ends up running away from everyone came up to me without saying a word. The fact that he even walked up to me before class started was huge to me.
I asked him how he was and he just looked at me blankly without saying anything. I gestured back "are you happy? hot? cold? hungry? good?" and he actually said back "hungry" to me.
It felt monumental that he actually said anything to me. The fact that he approached me instead of me approaching him.
Small moments like that are reasons why I love teaching to see those small steps. It really warms my heart.
There are lots of difficult kids at school but I want them to know that I believe in them.
Nothing makes me happier than when I compliment or affirm a student and they get all shy and smile back. It feels good to be affirmed so I want to return that. Especially to kids who have low confidence and kind of fade into the background amongst all the other kids with stronger personalities.








