Celebrating Life's Little Victories

When I taught first grade, there were "ah-ha! moments" daily and sometimes more then once daily.  It was exciting and exhilarating and my students and I celebrated these moments whenever they happened.  My classroom was and continues to be a place of acceptance for where we are in this exact moment, and a place of celebrating how far we have gone (in all aspects of life).

However, this year, I have come to remember how much smaller these "ah-ha moments" or "little victories" are in the world of special education.  My students don't always have daily "ah-ha moments" and sometimes the saying of "one step forward, two steps back" is even more appropriate.  But, when these "little victories" occur, they are so much more special and meaningful!  Sometimes after days of working on a specific topic, these "ah-ha moments" come out of nowhere and make all of the "two steps back", so worth it.  The other day I was in a 4th grade math class where we had been working on some pretty challenging multiplication concepts and 2 of my students had been very frustrated with this work.  However, on this day one of my students turned to the other and said

"We both have brains.  We can do this!"

 This was the first real "YES" moment that I had this year and it was amazing.  I forgot how important these moments are to teachers (and to me) and this was a great one.  It wasn't just an "ah-ha moment" for one student, but it was a moment where these students took ownership of their own learning and had confidence in what they were completing.  This confidence doesn't come easy to my students and so watching them gain confidence in their learning was a great way to spend my morning.  We stopped doing math and celebrated these statements and how empowering they were.  It was an amazing moment. 

Just like Kid President says:

My students are doing this for each other and helping to empower each other to take ownership of their own learning and I look forward to watching this continue to occur!