Friday Focus - September 28

I know that I've used the above quote in a previous post, but it has come back to me a few times over the past 2 weeks.  Unfortunately, I have encountered a few situations with individual students in which I either observed a parent yelling at their child or tried to help soothe a student that was sad from being yelled at by his/her parents before school.  I wonder how many of our students come to school with empty buckets or repeat messages to themselves (that they've heard from their parents/care-givers) that perpetuate their own negative feelings about themselves?

On the other side of this, I witness constantly the positive models you are for our students at Dodgeland.  Every morning I see faculty greeting students in the morning with a smile, asking how their weekend was or telling them how happy they are to see them.  I've seen a chatty class easily disrupt a lesson that could make a teacher lose her patience, however, she stopped teaching and waited until students realized she wasn't going to start teaching again until they were ready.  I've seen an upset student stop yelling and calm down, because the teacher he was yelling at spoke in a soft voice (without arguing) that seemed to automatically make the child lower his voice.  I've seen high fives to celebrate "staying on green" and teachers recognizing students for being bucket-fillers.

I know I've said it before and I can't say it enough times...our students are so lucky to have you in their lives to make sure that they each hear positive messages each day to build them up!!