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I can honestly say that the 2020-2021 school year was one of my most challenging, yet memorable year of teaching. First of all, we needed to adapt our teaching styles into distance learning literally overnight and build relationships with a whole new class through online learning. I can honestly say that my co-teacher and I did just that. We did anything we could to build relationships with our students from meeting one-on-one on zoom to creating "recess" zoom sessions with our students. What first started out as an "impossible" task, ended up being a successful one. When some of our students returned to in-person learning, it was like we already knew them and they were ready to learn in the classroom. One student in particular was a student who had limited internet connectivity and couldn't hear us half the time and would end up getting kicked out of our zoom class daily. When he returned to class, he was really a joy to have as a student. It really wasn't his fault that he had bad internet access. Thankfully, he was invited back to in-person learning and was able to successfully progress throughout the rest of the school year. It was exciting to have some of our students back on campus. Although the year brought us teachers lots of challenges, it opened up a whole new perspective on how we are able to build relationships virtually and adapt our teaching no matter the circumstances.

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The class I had last year was the group of students that I had the most memorable experiences with. Although they started off their first grade year very awkward with  little to no social skills, they grew into great little human beings. During the school year, I lost a few of my family members within 2 months. It took a huge toll on me even though I tried not to let it affect my work. I did my best to suck it up and display a cheerful spirit for my students. I remember my emotions hitting me one morning right before I had to open my classroom door. Of course I suspect certain students to say or do something that would make me laugh. There was one student that really struggled socially. The student would reject anyone that tried to be friendly even though they really wanted friends. That morning, this student came to class and handed me these cute little flowers and said 'I picked these for you.' This simple and small gesture almost brought me to tears and it definitely made me feel better instantly.

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I Just Might Like this Class - Christine Rose

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I Just Might Like this Class - Christine Rose

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Last week in class, we had just received our new Chromebooks. I had been teaching how to implement APA Formatting. Together with the class, I helped them set up the title page, to ensure that all students set it up correctly, to be successful in the final project.

Shortly after, a student asked a question about the graphic organizer. While I had given them the form, I disagreed with one component, and explained why this was. A new student, a repeat junior, in the back said something that I missed. I moved to the back of the classroom and asked him what he said. He repeated that I was different from all the teachers he has had before, and it just might be that he actually likes this class.

- Christine Rose

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A memorable experience that I had as a teacher was from these conversations that I would have with a student. In the morning when students walk in, I have them complete their morning business and from there they are free to do activities that I have for them today before the tardy bell. After one of my students was finished with their morning business, they decide to strike up a conversation with and that this was something that they would do everyday. They would talk about things they did the day before, what they were going to do that day, or random things that would pop up in their head. Towards the ending of the school year, they came to me as usually to talk to be about their day. Along the lines, they told me that the conversations that we have is something that they are going to miss. They told me that because of these conversations, they looked forward to going to school and would always feel sad when they had to miss school. From what I was told, this student is usually quiet at home. Hearing these thoughts from this student made me realize how much of an impact this conversations meant to this student. Till this day, I still think about the conversations we had and is happy to be a place where the student was able to freely express themselves.

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I stopped my lesson in the middle of class because my mom was blowing up my cellphone with text messages.  I thought it was super important because she doesn't ever do that so I decided to look at what she was writing to me.  Come to find out, she was trying to ask me what kind of stick I wanted for a picture.  I then had to explain to my students that I needed a stick to put my husbands picture on because he was going to miss an important wedding .. the bride and groom wanted him to be in the picture and asked if I could put him on a stick.  We ended up having an entire conversation about sticks... it was actually a really funny conversation.  After that conversation, many of the students told me that the class was their new favorite class....some of them even brought me sticks the next day and continued to bring me sticks for the rest of the school year... I still have some of the sticks.  I had a great time with those students!

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A couple of years ago I was doing a p4c circle with my students. The prompt was, "I have one piece of candy, who gets the candy?" Many students were saying that one of their classmates should get it because the noticed something positive they accomplished recently. One student raised their hand and said that I should break the candy up into 18 pieces so everyone can get a piece. It warmed my heart to see how this class really became a family.

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A funny story:
I was teaching my school's SEL curriculum in a first-grade classroom.  I had a dog puppet on one hand and a snail puppet on the other hand and was having them act out a friendship situation.  A student raised his hand frantically, and so I asked him, "Is this important?" and he said yes, so then I asked him, "Is this about what I'm talking about?" and again he said yes.  So I let him ask his question.  He said, "what are those big lines on your forehead?".  I told him they were my thinking lines and if he was lucky and did lots of thinking he might get them too.  The classroom teacher almost spit out her coffee and I carried on with my lesson.  That student is still one of my all-time favorite students.

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Last year I had a pair of cousins who acted as twins. They both attended preschool but still did not know their English alphabets. As they joined Hawaiian Immersion, they both knew they couldnʻt read. They both continued to state the couldnʻt read for almost an entire quarter as they learned their Hawaiian alphabets. One was the leader who would talk for both of them most of the time. One day only "the follower" came to class and I was able to work with him one-on-one. He began by stating he couldnʻt read. We started looking at alphabets and he amazed himself that he knew them all. Then we started putting letters together, and he amazed himself that he could read them. Then we put 3 and 4 letters together, and he looked at me and said, "oh, I can read!" I had the biggest smile ever!

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I have had so many memorable experiences both positive and negative, but a favorite positive was that we were not celebrating Valentine's Day last year, we had a "caring week" where we did a variety of activities showing caring about each other. One activity was to make envelopes for each student that had to write kind messages to each other and I didn't make one fro myself, only the kids, so one child made one for me and they all wrote so many sincere and thoughtful comments.

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Jamie Rachwal-Oyama
One year I had only 4 students in my 8th grade geometry class (HS credit) and one of the four students had never tried pickles. One of the many tangents I go on brought us to this discussion. So this girl goes out and buys a jar of pickles and instead of trying them at home, she waited and brought them to class so we could all eat them together (prior to COVID when germs were just germs ha). Anyways, she loved them and we ate the entire jar during that class period while learning proofs. Fast forward and these four are seniors. I ran into this student working at Starbucks the other day and she was telling me about how she's graduating and how life is tough. She was like "remember when we ate pickles in your class?" Time flies and relationships are important. Students don't always remember the content you teach, but they'll remember the relationships forever.

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There are so many memorable experiences as a teacher, I think we could create a wonderful compilation of memoirs with all of our anecdotes so it's hard for me to pick actually.
I really enjoy when I bring in off-kilter "things" into my classroom. I have a bubble machine that I'll use to greet my students, we've colored with chalk outside, last week students used playdough while I read my personal narrative to them, I read children's picture books, etc...
I love bringing my preschool experience into the middle school classroom because they see I am not so serious and it also gives them permission to be childlike (appropriately of course). Their reactions speak to my heart because we expect children to grow up so fast today, especially kids in Hawaii because we know they do not all have easy lives.

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I had a student who I taught 7th and 8th grade math to. She was a lot to deal with. I had to stay on her constantly. She made me work for every penny of my salary for the class periods I had her over the two year span. She left middle school saying I was her least favorite teacher and she wished she never had my class. I felt like you can't win them all. Well a couple years later she found me on social media. She apologized for how she treated me and giving me a hard time. She said I helped her so much and she knows now that I truly cared about her. Middle school teachers don't always get to see the impact we make so it was amazing having her reach out and share how I impacted her life in a positive way.

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A memorable experience I had was when a parent hand wrote me a card to thank our school for providing her daughter with the love and care she needed and supporting her to graduate.

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Memorable Experience - AnaLisa Hennessey

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Memorable Experience - AnaLisa Hennessey

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Last year we did morning circle almost every morning. During this time students and teachers had an opportunity to share out on an idea that they reflected on in the morning, such as "What superpower would you want to have and why?" As students transitioned to morning circle, they would greet one another in some way. A popular transition was "air greeting" in which they gave an air five or air fist bump while greeting their classmates by name. By mid way through the year, teachers in the class noticed that almost every student would share and enjoyed learning about each other in this way. We called it "people learning", which was a phrase we took from the beginning of the year admin days. Some students even mentioned that this was one of their favorite parts of the day because they liked sharing about themselves and/or learning about others.

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Students in my class created a safe learning environment for all learners. Students included all students in activities and treated everyone with kindness. No child left behind.

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My most memorable experience I've had as a teacher was having a student come in at the beginning of the school year having very limited English, but ended the school year making new friends and passing the Math SBA. I asked her what advice what you give other students and she said, "look for context clues, like you kept repeating in your lessons!"

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My most memorable experience I've had as a teacher was having a student come in at the beginning of the school year having very limited English, but ended the school year making new friends and passing the Math SBA. I asked her what advice what you give other students and she said, "look for context clues, like you kept repeating in your lessons!"

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I did a paper mache project in Thailand and I asked each student to bring in some flour. I didn't realized to specify which kind of flour and a majority of my students brought in rice flour. This was definitely a cultural moment for me. Rice flour does not dry as quickly as wheat flour.

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A student learned a song in one class on the day of the performance to cover for a student that couldn't perform. She sang so well I was amazed by her commitment and courage.