There are little moments that you notice in teaching that can make the job either really fun or make you feel like you are actually making some sort of difference to a student. For example, there was a moment when my students realized that I was, in fact, bald.

For a little bit of background, I always wear a hat and always had one on in the classroom. It wasn’t to hide my shiny bald head, but rather just because I like wearing hats.

During one of our regular class rituals of discussing upcoming topics, I took off my hat to quickly swipe my hand across my head (I’m not really sure why I do this, but I do it pretty frequently). The classroom suddenly went completely silent, and every student was staring at me with a stunned look on their faces.

Confused, I asked them what the problem was. Did I swear accidentally? Did I use middle school slang and they were internally cringing? Did I accidentally mock a student?  No, that wasn’t the issue.

One student immediately spoke up and asked, “…You’re bald?”

“Yes?” I replied, wondering why the class was shocked at the revelation that I was bald.

“…You can’t be bald, you’re 30!”

Suddenly the entire class was laughing and all tension was gone.

No, they were not laughing at my shiny bald head. Rather they were laughing at the disbelief someone had about a 30-year-old being balder than a baby. Even the student who asked the question was laughing at himself.

…Or maybe they were laughing at my bald head. Who knows?

I look back at this moment a few times. Not out of embarrassment, but out of some sense of joy. I think this moment in the classroom was where I stopped being the random new student teacher and became a person to these students.

It’s moments like this that I look back on. And moments where I could tell what I was doing was making a difference for my students.

Decoding Poetry: Poe and The Bells

I recall one time when I was working with my students on poetry analysis. Any English teacher knows that poetry analysis can be a challenge to teach effectively. While it can be very challenging, it’s rewarding to your comprehension skills once you get poetry analysis down.

For class on this specific day, we were reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Bells. After I had read the poem with my students, I allowed them to work in groups on responses to some questions regarding the text.

Like usual, I began walking around and answering questions from the students and trying to help them on their way to answering their responses. I looked over to the back of the classroom and saw a student with a very focused thinking face. I figured he was just stuck on a question so I went over to him to answer any question I could.

I approached this student and asked how I could help.

The student looked up, sighed, and replied, “I’m reading this, and I can tell there’s something to it. Like he’s talking about these bells. But he’s also saying that they are giving off different tones almost every day. I don’t think bells can do that.”

I could tell this student was on to something. He had noticed some inaccuracies with the sound of the bells. I was curious to see if he could make the connection.

I asked him, “Well, why do you think he hears the bells making different tones?”

This question really sent him on to a train of thought. I could see the gears churning. He was looking upwards like he was visualizing his own thoughts.

“Well,” he began, “Some bells seem happy, while some seem sad. And the intro mentioned Poe dealing with his wife being sick”

Suddenly, as if a lightbulb went off in his head, a large smile spread across my student’s face.

“The bells are actually his emotions! The sounds he’s hearing from the bells because of his wife being sick,” he said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

The pure joy from this experience is something I wish I could bottle. Seeing a student struggle through their own train of thought to answer their own question gives you such a strong feeling of pride and joy. I gave the student a high five and he turned to explain his epiphany to his group.

Life Lessons in the Classroom

Another time in a different class. I remember having a student who was quick to frustration. I could tell that he was a good kid, and actually saw a lot of myself from middle school in him.

One day he was working with a student that he seemed to struggle to get on the same page with. While the class was working, I could hear him getting more and more frustrated as  the other student continued to explain his own train of thought. At one point, he slammed his hand on the desk. The whole class got silent, and I knew I needed to take control of the situation. I calmly, yet sternly, asked him to go out to the hall and wait for me to come talk to him. Looking back, I wish I would have used a friendlier tone with him, because I think he and everyone else thought he was in trouble.

Once I saw that the class was back to working properly, I walked out to the hall and met with the student. He was still a bit frustrated, so I told him to take a few deep breaths and try to calm himself down. Telling someone who is upset to calm down seems to always have the opposite effect, so I could tell he was getting more upset.

Calmly I told him, “I understand that you are frustrated. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s tough to calm down once you are upset. The best way to deal with it is to sometimes just let things go. If I could offer any advice, I would tell you this: There’s going to be a lot of things in life that upset you. Sometimes, the best course of action is to not put any energy into the smaller things that upset you and focus your attention on things that truly matter.”

After telling him this, I got the quick dismissive “yea, ok” and we went about our day. It wasn’t until the next day that I would see if this advice was taken or not.

The next day, the same two students were next to each other. I could tell there was a discussion prior to them entering the classroom, so there was already some heightened emotions. The other student was frustrated and was trying to explain his side of the story. The student that I had talked to yesterday took a second, and then he surprised me.

He told the student that was frustrating him, “you know what? This isn’t a big deal, and I don’t want to put energy into it. So I’m letting it go”

The other student replied that he understood and they both got ready for the class. While I was preparing the daily task, I threw him a quick thumbs up to show him that I saw how he handled the situation. Once again, it was a moment of pride seeing someone take your advice.

W.A.F.F.L.E.-O: A Classroom Slogan that Stuck

This one really surprised me. I got this saying from a YouTube video back in the mid-2010s that was a one-off joke.

One day in class, I decided to let students choose their own spots, but they couldn’t sit next to people that they previously sat next to. This was my way of trying to get different dynamics in the classroom, as well as get students to talk to different people during their work.

Of course, I began to notice students were not exactly being friendly with other students. I consistently heard negative remarks about students when they were conveying their rejection to some seating partner ideas.

Finally, I looked up and said “Hey, there’s no reason to be rude. W.A.F.F.L.E.-O!”

I threw in the old acronym to try to be funny. Of course, this was met with a large amount of confusion. To explain what I meant, I wrote the following on the board:

(Yes, each other is two words—so technically it breaks the acronym “rules”—but it worked, and the students loved it.)

I wrote W.A.F.F.L.E.-O in the corner of the board and everyone went about their business.

I had no clue what I had just started.

Unknown to me, apparently W.A.F.F.L.E.-O became a common slogan across the eighth grade classes. Any time students saw arguments, someone would say “W.A.F.F.L.E.-O!” and the argument would calm down. I heard it a few times in my classroom, but figured it was only a classroom joke.

It wasn’t until I returned to the school five months after my student teaching was completed that I would truly see the impact a quick joke would have on the students. I walked into my mentor teacher’s classroom to see that W.A.F.F.L.E.-O was still written on the board. In fact, it had been rewritten on the board.

My mentor teacher explained to me that she removed it from the board during one of the whiteboard cleanings, and that the morning group of eighth graders essentially demanded that W.A.F.F.L.E.-O needed to be back on the board.

That is also when I learned about how the eighth grade class had taken it for a slogan to be kinder to each other. I loved this. Sure, it was used by me as a quick deescalating joke, but my students took it and ran with it.

Reflections

There’s a special feeling seeing the students you are teaching take something you taught them (whether it be a lesson, life advice, or a fun slogan) and continue to use it long after the discussion is over. I think a lot of us can look back in our lives and remember certain things a coach or teacher said to us that sticks with us to this day.

So to my teacher readers, keep going and keep doing what you are doing. You are probably making an impact more than you think.

To my non-teacher readers, remember that your advice and experiences can still leave an impact, and there is nothing better than seeing someone take what you learned and use it in their own lives.

And to all my readers, what moments in your life have made you realize the impact you have on others? I would love to hear your stories- share them in the comments below or on my Facebook, Threads, or X (Twitter) page!