Successes
I've seen a lot of negative stories on here and rightfully so, but I also think it'd do us all some good if we got some success stories on here! What are your guys success stories or things that made you say, "THIS is why I got into teaching!"
I'll start with 2:
I had a student that really struggled in my class but he really enjoyed reading the books I suggested to him. He told me one day that he has just never been able to do well in school. He seemed so discouraged. I had an idea for his final assignments for the rest of the year that centered around the book that we were all reading. I ended up using chatgpt to swap all the assignments we are doing from Lord of the flies over to project hail Mary (the book he was so excited about at the time.) I asked him if he feels he could do all the assignments if they were based on project hail Mary. His face lit up and he got really excited and said yes! He did all the assignments and scored really well on all of them. I told him that as long as he can show me the skills then it doesn't matter which book he's using. I also told him that he's a smart kid and just because traditional education doesn't allow him to always show it, that doesn't mean he's stupid. Sometimes he just needs another way to demonstrate it.
The other success story is that the school allowed me to pilot our first competitive esports program. I had a lot of kids show up and become active members that usually did not participate in other school activities. In fact some of them fail quite a few classes. My AP has noticed the grades of all these students improving while we're in season. I hold them to the same standards grade-wise as traditional sports. Esports's great for these kids because most of them are not athletes and will never be on the podium for basketball or wrestling. But it's still a way for them to shine and feel like they matter.