A Very Special Birthday

Greetings to you my fellow BETS!

I decided to change my opening greeting because I never know exactly when I am going to post, or when you all will get around to reading it.  So there we go.

Today is not my birthday, let's just get that  out of the way. A week or so ago, I made the comment that I have hundreds of stories about my kids at school that I want to share.  I believe I made the comment that they would be for “Another Day”.  Well, welcome to “Another Day”.  I won’t share all of them of course, just one for now.

Over the last two years, I have kind of kept myself at an arm’s length with my students as a whole.  Some kids of course, you connect with quickly, but for the most part I have tried to shield them from seeing the real me.  I’m not sure if this is for them, or if this is for me.  Maybe a bit of both.

This year, I discovered that I have a few “Birthday Buddies” here at school.  I’m not sure why, but this really got me excited.  I love the fact that I share my birthday with some of the kids!  So much fun to be had, now multiplied by the additional characters!

In learning this, I apparently made it clear as to when my birthday actually falls.  Now this could have been when I mentioned I had birthday buddies.  Or it may have been when a student asked me directly.  Or possibly it was when I would announce every day, two weeks prior to the date, how many shopping days were left until said event.  Anyway, it doesn’t really matter how they found out, but they did.

I was really touched when one of my students came to my room before her class with the bag of goodies you see in the picture.  If you can’t see it well, there is a chocolate bar wrapped in a Dementos wrapper, some truffles with wings added to resemble Golden Snitches, a bag with a Gryffindor tie on it, an awesome Prefect Badge, and a wonderful birthday card with Ron, Harry and Hermione on it.  Obviously she and I had shared our love for the Harry Potter series before this date.

What really got me though, was the time and thought that it took this student to put this together for me.  This was one very special moment for me this year.  A couple of other students also got me candy bars(my students know me), and I think I got a special Doughnut and Coffee in the morning as well.  I also got many, “It’s your birthday today, Mr. Ringenberg?  Happy Birthday!”, which of course was also cool.  But the Harry Potter Gift bag.  Did I ever do any of that for a teacher? No, of course not.  Heck I probably never even acknowledged my teachers’ birthdays.

My takeaway from this was that I need to be that thoughtful in preparing for my kids in the morning.  My lesson plans may not thrill them, and my homework won’t score points for me I am sure.  But maybe, if I plan on being truly present with all of my interactions with each of them, I can convey a measure of thoughtfulness, as my students do to me.  Let’s hope so, huh?

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