The Thanksgiving Board

      For this week's pay it forward, I decided to get a little bit of a jump start on the Thanksgiving holiday spirit. I really wanted my students to think about what was important to them and to voice that in some unique way. I came up with the idea of giving the kids free reign with my white board at the front of the room. I called it the Thanksgiving Board and I wrote "Things I Am Thankful For:" at the top and got them started by writing one thing I was thankful for in a cool graffiti font. I wrote "My Students."

     You see teaching was not exactly my first career choice. Teaching kind of found me, not the other way around and I thank God for that, for it was his vision not mine, that brought me down this weird and winding road.

      Oh, I have my days. There are plenty of pity parties when I hit a low, look at the bills and start calculating how much money I might have made had I stayed in the engineering field, but then I have a week like this one.

      I explained my Thanksgiving Board to my first class of the day. I gave them some rules. Kids like structure. No erasing anyone else's work. Nothing inappropriate. I reserve the right to edit out whatever I see fit. I told them "You can write anything at all that you are thankful for even coffee and chocolate :)  but once you get all of the shallow stuff out of the way, I want you to go a little deeper. What are you really grateful for? What freedoms do you have because of where you live and where you are born and due to the sacrifices of many brave men and women? What joys do you have in your life? What, or better yet who, makes this life worth living?"

      At first the children just kind of looked at the board, then one brave soul ventured up front and began to write. I got some comical stuff. One young lady wrote that she was very thankful for "hot guys" as she put it and the band members of One Direction to be more specific. Once she got the ball rolling the flood gates opened and everyone wanted some space on the board. Let's see, there was watermelon, mine craft, x box, chewing gum, Saturdays and easy math tests, but their were also a few more interesting items. One little girl wrote that she was grateful to be healthy, impressive insight for a seventh grader. One student that had recently undergone a very serious surgery and health scare wrote one word: life.

      But my favorite one had to be from that little girl that just got back from time out of school due to the death of her grandmother. That sweet girl filled an entire three foot sized bubble of things that just she was thankful for. She wrote the individual names of all of her family members. There must have been twenty or so. She stopped a couple of times to be sure that she didn't miss anyone. She wrote her big sister's name extra large with hearts around it. That made me smile and I got to thinking that sometimes it is true what they say about the rain making us appreciate the sunshine. What a brave and wonderful young lady. She is only in the sixth grade but she gets it.

      I know what I am thankful for this year, my family, my health, a job that I love and more importantly my students that I get the privilege to teach. I am truly thankful for their joy, their laughter, their fun, their silliness, their ability to see things in such a simple, unimpeded way. They teach me more than I will ever teach them. God knew what he was doing when he pointed me, well more like pushed me, in this direction. He was giving me yet another wonderful gift to be thankful for.  :)

      Laurie