Bouncing Back

After a less than stellar week, this week has been much better. I started my weekend last week by writing letters to all of the parents of the students I worked with. It was a great way for me to inform the parents of the progress being made and to request that they keep on reminding their children to work hard this last quarter. It also helped me keep in perspective what they have already accomplished this year and how far they've really come in the last year.

I ended the weekend helping my kickball team to 2 victories including a lead-off homerun in our last inning to start a rally for the victory. Despite the cooler weather, our team hung out for a while after the game and ended up having an improptu get together at someone's house for a barbecue.

This week has been going pretty well compared to last week. I have a couple of kids who seem to be finally kicking it into gear in school. Today one of my students was late to school, but when I saw him I reminded him he had a spelling test. I knew he had studied for the test and I wanted to make sure he got to class in time to take the test. After telling him, he ran to his locker and got to class in time to get a 10 out of 15. It's still not perfect, but a month ago he was getting a 3 at best. When I told him what he had got, he was even disappointed that he didn't do better and told me next week he plans on getting a perfect score. It was refreshing to finally see him and others take pride in their school work and want to do better.

Tonight I'll be helping at a lock-in which I'm really looking forward to. It's always fun to see kids from other schools and see how they are compared to the students I work with. It will keep me later than normal for a Friday, but it's definitely worth it. The rest of the weekend is undetermined besides kickball on Sunday followed by the All Star game/barbecue. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and get better before Sunday.

Hope everything is well with everyone else.