End of another year

Another year is winding down--our last day is a week from tomorrow--and what have my lambs learned? What have I learned?

I'm not nearly the teacher I want (or need) to be, few of us are.

You cannot hope to add much to a child's knowledge in the conditions imposed by this thing we call "school," but just might alter the way a child approaches a problem, examines a claim, sees herself in the world beyond the cinder block walls.

Or maybe she'd figure that out a lot quicker if she just lingered outside the school building a few minutes each morning, breathing quietly, simply paying attention to a tiny critter crawling on the crumbling bark of the ancient tree that looms behind our school's message board.