Shared joy

I opened our letters from our fourth grade pen pals this morning to find these. I swooned.

*****

I’ve written about how much joy my virtual hour gives me when they take their FRQ portion of their test verbally and just knock it out of the park.

The first day to take Unit 5’s FRQs was today. I got on Zoom, and my kid was waiting patiently for me, ready with his questions pulled up.

“Do you want paper/pencil?”

“No, ma’am. I can talk these out without paper in front of me.”

“Ok! Talk me through AP Set 5B.”

“Yes ma’am.”

And then he proceeded to give a flawless verbal explanation of a full-length past FRQ.

After praising him and his work ethic, I asked if he could do it one more time.

“You makin me nervous! But ok. I’ll try!”

I brought over the AP coordinator/math curriculum specialist.

I introduced the two. And off we he went. Flawless again.

Then she praised him.

He was beaming.

I was beaming.

We said goodbye and I ended my Zoom meeting. I looked at my friend and said, “Don’t you just want to cry?!”

She said she was so happy she got to witness that.

I’ve bragged all year about these kids and their ability to do this very weird (but in my opinion highly effective) testing strategy. But no one else has ever seen it in action. To share what our kids are doing is such a joy. I’m so glad I got to share their goodness today with someone who loves math as much as I do.