reserved for principal

(i wish there was some way to make the "reserved for principal" sign more prominent)

so yesterday marked the beginning of spring break in baldwin county, and the last day of student teaching for all of the early childhood majors. they were all pretty emotional all day. i've got 2 more days after spring break, and then it's off to salt lake city for the cec conference (free trip!!!). katie and i went through our hundreds of digital photos and found our favorite of each kid, had prints made at walmart, wrote a little poem about the things we've done all year, and put it all in a frame that we decorated with the school colors and their first initial. we passed them out to our kids and tried to tell each one why they were special to us as we did it. then we sat our host teachers down in the front of the room, blindfolded them, and put some cheap orange lifejackets that i had written things on around their necks. one said "hello my name is erin" and "bahamas or bust." and the other one said "kristi" across the neck and "if found return to u.s.a." they should have left for a cruise this morning. katie bought them some other really expensive stuff and somehow justified a way to say that it was from both of us. as with the whole teaching experience this year, she's come up with good ideas and made things cute, i've done the writing and technical stuff. we're a great team and probably won't have such good teaching partners next fall.

one of my students decided he would write poems for us. to give you an idea of what this kid's like, he has a learning disability in reading. he's got the best attitude, work ethic, and enthusiasm that you've ever seen, he just can't read or write well. he has a cousin (in kindergarten) who has some medical problems for which he's having surgery in alabama over break. his cousin is nervous about the surgery (as any person would be) and so he asked my student (2nd grader) to go with him for support. my student was more than willing to give up his spring break to be there for his cousin. he looks out for him at school like a big brother, and now he's going to sit in a hospital in birmingham (i think) to be there for his cousin. that in itself makes me emotional, but then he decided to write this poem:

There once was a man named Mr. Dean
He was really very clean.
He really can play the guitar
And as a teacher, he is a star.
He could dance and he could sing.
He could even teach something.
He liked to teach
All those he could reach.
He was like no other,
He was my "brother from another mother."
As his time came to an end
I really didn't want to lose my friend.
I hope to see him all the time
So I won't have to make up another rhyme.

so yeah, my eyes watered a little and one of my obnoxious (i love them all, but this ticked me off) student kept saying "mr. dean, men don't cry" over and over while i was telling this kid thank you for writing a poem. his poem to katie said something like "thank you for helping mr. dean so that he is not mean," which i thought was funny. basically i love this kid, and i never felt like i had a favorite until yesterday, but he's so inspiring it's ridiculous. pray that his cousin's surgery goes well, cause i love that kid to death too.

spring break means looking for a job, doing a lot of stuff on computer for camp and school and music, and visiting folks, like katie in americus.