Hallmark’s got nothin’ on my students

Tuesdays are the tough day of teaching religious school. The kids have been in school all day. They’re tired, they’re hungry, they want to be anywhere but in school for another two hours. On Tuesdays, I use a much lighter touch than on Sundays, when I have (theoretically) well-rested children at the beginning of their day. But it’s still a tough day, and often calls for a lot of patience.

This afternoon, as I turned down the hall to get to class, one of my students (outside the door) saw me and said loudly, “Oh no! She’s here!”

These are generally not the words a teacher wants to hear. I reached the door, which was closed, ready for the worst. My student stood in front of the door and told me I couldn’t go in yet. I thought it was a gag. I don’t have a lot of patience for gags on Tuesday afternoons. I told her to stop the nonsense and let me in. She got even more anxious and said that they weren’t ready yet. Then one of the students inside the classroom came to the door and told me they weren’t ready yet. Recognizing the inevitable, I sighed, put down my bag and told them I was going to get a glass of water, and they’d better be ready when I got back.

When I returned, it took another few seconds or so of deciding if it was all right for me to come in before I could get my student out of the doorway. I walked into the room expecting something annoying. Instead, my students yelled “Surprise!” and proceeded to tell me they had cleaned up the classroom. It was beautiful. All of the books were stacked neatly. Loose papers had been put into piles on my desk or on the bookshelves. They had straightened out the papers on my desk. “We even erased the board better,” they assured me.

On my desk was a note, which read:

Dear Ms. Yourish,

We think you are the best teacher ever so we decided to clean your room.

It was signed by all of my students.

The ups are disproportionately wonderful when you’re teaching fourth graders.

I’ll be smiling about this one for ages.