Behind the Blog

Behind the Blog
My name is Cindy Kruse and I've been learning from elementary students for the past 16 years. I enjoy discovering new technology and implementing it in the classroom, absolutely love literacy, and am passionate about Responsive Classroom. I am constantly striving to learn new and innovative ways to teach students in order to provide authentic, interesting, and joyful classrooms.

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Sunday, May 29, 2011

What will they remember?

On Friday, I shadowed an administrator at a middle school as part of my internship for my principal's certification. It was an eye opening experience at all levels, however I learned something that I had not expected to learn...

Having taught elementary students for the past eight years in the same district, I was hoping that I would see some familiar faces throughout the day. I really wasn't prepared to see how much my former students had changed. Students can change a lot in just one year.

I honestly did not even recognize many of them as they excitedly asked, "Mrs. Kruse - remember me?" I was amazed at how much students can change in 4 or 5 years. During the afternoon, we moved into the lunchroom to supervise students. One by one, my former students gathered around me voicing the same question each time, "Mrs. Kruse - remember me?" Students asked me, "Hey, do you remember when ....?" or "I remember...." Suddenly I had a rather large group of eighth graders circling up and reminiscing about their third grade class five years ago. We smiled and laughed as we recalled events from that year.

As I reflected on this experience, and thought about this year coming to the end in just a few days , I began to wonder:

1. What will my students remember most from the 1,080 hours that we spend together in a given year?

2. What will I remember the most about them?

I found that what these students remembered the most were the every day experiences we had together - the field trips we took, favorite games and activities we played during Morning Meetings each day, our class pet - 'Willis' the hamster, etc. - the things that made our class a true community. A sense of community is something that I work hard to create with each and every class every year and that is what students truly remember.

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