patience

The 5th graders are writing about someone they admire.  In order to do that, you have to understand what it means to admire someone.  We've talked a lot about how admiring someone is different than just liking them.  We've talked about reasons you might admire someone.

It's really cute.  All 4 of my boys are writing about their grandfathers!

I'm trying to co-teaching writing this year with their 5th grade teacher, but we've been having a hard time keeping up with the writing pace of the students who do not have learning disabilities.  We, meaning, my students with writing IEP goals. 

So today we finally had a nice big chunk of time to try and get caught up. One girl was so far behind, she hadn't even finished her planning sheet. She wanted to write about her dad, but she couldn't figure out why she admires him.  Again, I went through reasons that I admire people.  I said I admire people who are patient.  Is your dad patient? She said yes.  Then we realized she didn't really know what it meant to be patient.

So I modeled. I showed her how a patient person would wait for a late bus and then I showed her how an impatient person would wait for a bus.  I showed her how a patient person would help her with a math problem and how an impatient person would help her.  I was kind of dramatic.  Then I asked, "So, do you think your dad is patient?"  She said yes.  When I asked her why, she said, "Well he's not all crazy like that!" (Referring to my apparently overly dramatic examples of impatient people.) 

That made me laugh.

What happened next made me cringe a bit.

I explained that it didn't have to be so dramatic.  Impatient people don't always look like they are crazy.  I said, "Sometimes I get impatient when I have to repeat directions and I might say, 'I just said that! Why do I have to say it again?!" 

A student listening in said, "Oh yeah. You're like that every day."

:/

Yikes. Is that what they think of me?