I have a few of my classes turn in journals each week.  I give them an easy topic to write on, for example, “My favorite food” or “All about me”.  They have to write about five sentences.  For some of the kids, it’s a real challenge.  Others write me a mini novel each week.

I have one student in C5 named Colin.  Colin is a bit of a firecracker.  He used to be in C4, but because that class was so small, they split the kids up between C3 and C5.  Before getting Colin, I had heard nightmare stories about his behavior in class.  He can be a handful sometimes, but his behavior has been improving in the last few months.

I started journals with C5 about 3 months ago.  Until yesterday, I had not recieved a journal from Colin.  Every week I asked him and every week he told me he forgot it at home.  Whatever.  I can’t force the kids to do their homework.  The ones that are most serious about their English studies are usually the ones who hand in their journals each week.   At the beginning of the week, Colin promised me he was going to do his journal for Friday.  I simply told him, “OK.  I’m looking forward to getting it.” and left it at that.

On Friday, Colin comes down to our office so he can get my books to take upstairs.  He’s only started that this week…  I’m not sure why, but I do appreciate it.  I go upstair to the classroom with him.  He puts my books on the desk and then hands me his journal.  Of course, I praise him like crazy.  I collected journals from the rest of the class and tell them how happy I am to get so many this week.  Usually when I collect them, I glance at them to make sure they did them.  Sometimes the kids will think they did, but they didn’t.  I understand that.  I did that more than once in my academic career.  Collin didn’t want me to look at his though.  I wasn’t going to argue with him because it was time to get class started.

After C5 on Friday, I have a break where I usually grade their journals.  This week I just chatted with a coworker.  I decided to bring them home to grade over the weekend.  No big deal as they only take a few minutes each.  I opened Colin’s earlier today.  The top he was supposed to write about was “My favorite food”.  Well, he didn’t.  I present Colin’s journal entry (complete with spelling errors) because it just made my day.

I love tacher is a kathrin tacher! ♥ kathrin tacher love a my!  kathrin!! love O<!♥

Seriously. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing.  Somehow I’ve sort of gotten through to Colin.  He no longer gives any of his teachers a hassle.  I don’t know much about his home life, but from the few things he’s said, it seems like he doesn’t get much attention.  For many kids, the negative attention they get from acting out is better than being ignored.  I’m really doing my best to praise him when he’s good.  He still will act up in class.  Now all I have to do is say “Colin, you’re having a really good day today.  Keep it up.” and he calms down.  I have to admit, Colin has grown on me.  I’m proud of the progress he’s made.