Today my fourth graders went to the park with their first grade reading buddies for an end-of-the-year celebration. It was very, very cute. The moms of both the classes surprised me with a potluck they organized themselves, complete with vegetarian pupusas and vegetarian taquitos (since I don't eat meat) and many kinds of salsa and flan. I made a summer date with the pupusa-maker to come over to my house and teach me how to make them!
Another thing that made me smile a lot today were the letters that our first grade reading buddies wrote to me. They thanked me for bringing my students to read with them, for being kind to them, etc. And then they offered me advice for my future life as a doctoral student:
"No se olvide de terminar la tarea." (Don't forget to finish the homework.)
"Pórtate bien." (Behave yourself.)
"No olvides a prestar atención a tu maestra." (Don't forget to pay attention to your teacher."
And my favorite - in English - from a student who has a really, really hard time at school, who's been retained, and who other kids get frustrated with sometimes: "Good luck at your new school. I hope you have a lot of friends there."
I was thinking about what to write back to them. I was thinking of promising that I would do all my homework and always pay attention to my teacher. But then I realized that might not be true! Maybe a big difference between first grade and 19th grade (which my students and I figured out is the grade I will be in) is that by the time you're in 19th grade you know when you can get away with not doing your homework and not paying attention - while still learning what you need to learn.
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