Innocence

Kids really do say the funniest things but they are also the most innocent little creatures ever.  They have no clue the cruel realities of this world we as adults now face.  When I walk into work in the morning I feel like I'm entering a whole new world.  I feel as if the troubles of this world, this country, this state, and this city have been lifted off my shoulders and my only real worry is how to put a smile on my student's faces.  We never know what these kids are coming from.  We rarely get insight into their home lives and we are challenged every day to break through their walls and work around any insecurities and worries these children might be bringing to school with them without us knowing anything about it.

Over the past two years, I experienced the home lives of so many children.  The different ideas of what families consider a "comfortable living" astonishes me.  I saw houses with newly remodeled kitchens and hardwood floors and beautiful cathedral ceilings - houses that I would never in my life be able to afford - to houses that were literally as small as my apartment for 7 people to live in.  I was in houses where the words "drugs", "alcohol" and "violence" would never exist and I was in houses where they all existed, every night and sometimes every day.  It astonishes me even more how so many of these families (not all, but many) can live through the things I saw with big smiles on their faces.  Because in all reality, it's not about what you have, it's who your with that really matters.

So now I face a new challenge.  Now I have to go on with therapy and encourage parents to carryover what I'm doing in my therapy room into their homes.  With my background, I am a huge proponent of carryover.  Not only into the home but also into the classroom.  I think I've started off this year really pushing my believes of carryover and it's importance.  There's no way to generalize the skills they learn in my small therapy room without having the support of classmates, teachers and parents.  I've sent a small cheat sheet to each teacher on each student they have with speech and language services.  On the sheet I listed their speech goals, their speech therapy days and their IEP due dates.  I'm in the process of sending home homework folders with all of my students.  I am pushing into the classroom as much as I can and talking to teachers about what they can do to help better their student's speech and language skills.  Of course, I have parents who are on board and I have parents who could care less, but I will not give up on helping these children while they are at school and in my hands.  All I can do is my best and my best is what I am going to give them. These kids deserve it.

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."  -Helen Keller

**Now I'll leave you with some of those innocent, funny and cute things that leave me smiling at the end of every work day:

"I have two dogs.  Their names are 'Wiser' and 'Bud'."  - Really? So glad these are dog's names and not children!

"Get focused here!  Get focused here!" - A first grader to a third grader after she sat him down at his desk and put out work for him to do, all while slapping her hand on the desk to get his attention.  


"God can fly.  He floats on clouds and he has wings." - A second grader when listing things that belong in a category of "things that can fly". 


"My favorite thing I have learned in school is how to stop bullying." - A fifth grader.  I wish I could tell you his whole story and why this one broke my heart but alas I can't... just knowing our Anti-bullying program is working puts the biggest smile on my face.

Bwack and Lellow, Bwack and Lellow

It was Black and Gold day at Wilson Elementary today.  And the Steelers garb was out in full force.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I truly don't follow football very closely.  For me, football season only exists from mid-August to mid-September (AKA preseason and maybe one or two regular season games) when my true love, preseason Penguins HOCKEY, starts!  I'm already stoked to be going to the preseason game with Chris on Thursday!  Life is great right now... and it's only going to get better with hockey season starting!

So, today, I continued with the "marker game" and like yesterday I would take a turn as well.  I always picked the same color markers, Black and Yellow.  Again, anyone who knows me, knows that Black and Yellow are my two favorite colors, and not just because they are the true colors of Pittsburgh.  However, I do honestly think I bleed black and gold.  I’m with a group of first graders today and I pick up my two colors and decide that I will go first in order to show the kiddos what I want them to do.  So, I tell them that black and yellow are my favorite colors and that I am a huge hockey fan.  And the next thing I know, the little “shy” first grader that was sitting across from me starts belting out Whiz Khalifa’s Black and Yellow.  Except, keep in mind that these kids are here for one reason, and one reason only… they have a speech delay!  So, this little boy sang a new version of Whiz’s song…  “Bwack and Lellow, Bwack and Lellow”.   If I had a tape recorder, it would have been repeated and recorded for me to listen to before every Steeler and Penguin game!  The best part was that this little boy sang it with so much confidence and no care in the world… I mean he belted it with two of his classmates in the room and didn’t even think twice about what they would think of him.  Granted, he only knew those three words to the song.  However, they are really the only important words for him to know, right?

Let’s Go Pens!            Go Steelers!

Captain Wagner, Speech, Ms. Wagner

I loved today!  After three weeks full of organizing and reorganizing, scheduling and rescheduling, I finally got to start seeing my students.

Each group started out the session by picking their choice of colored paper (either red, orange, green, or yellow).  Once they picked the paper, I had them trace their hands (or I traced their hands for them).

We put the hands to the side and I brought out my container of markers or crayons, depending on the age group.  I instructed them to pick one, two, or three markers, but no less than one and no more than three (I have to pause for a second to say a BIG thank you to my sister who gave me this idea on my way to work this morning, except I changed it from blocks to markers/crayons... so Thanks, Megs!!!).  On my dry erase board, I wrote a list of topics they could chose from to talk about.  The number of markers they had in their hands dictated the number of things they had to tell me about themselves.  This was a great way to get the students talking and to get them to interact and ask each other questions.

After we heard from each student, we went back to working on the "leaves" for my tree.  They wrote their names on their "hand" and then we talked about what they worked on in speech the previous year.  Most of the students know what they worked on but if they didn't, we talked about what we would be working on in the next year.  I wrote each student's goals on the "fingers" and then had them color/decorate their "leaf" any way they wanted.  While they did that, I explained my classroom rules to them and talked to them about the homework folders they would be getting (we'll talk about those some other time).  We cut out their hands at the end and started hanging them up on my tree!  Once I get them all up (by the end of next week), I'll take a picture for everyone to see!

This brings me to the title of this entry.  On my dry erase board, I also had written my name:  Ms. Wagner.  Plain and clear.  It's not a hard name; at least not for my students who can actually produce the /r/ sound (which isn't that many actually!).   Some of the students know my name, some of them have no clue.  Others just make up their own.  One of the students that I have in from the life skills class has been calling me a "speech" since he met me two weeks ago.  He's a little boy who has down syndrome and I think it is the cutest thing, ever.  He will see me in the halls and say "Hi, Speech".  I love it.  And then there's the fourth grader who I finished my day with today.  I asked him if he remembered my name (because I had spent some time with him before) and he says "yeah, it's Ms. Wagner, but I'm going to call you Captain Wagner!"  We proceeded with the rest of the session and I was called "Captain Wagner" each and every time he referred to me.  Would it be out of line to have all my students refer to me as either "Captain Wagner" or "Speech"?  

Now let me pause to say I was a little concerned how I would fair with the 4th and 5th graders.  I wasn't too concerned with K-3 because I've had a lot of experience with younger kids and my nephew is in 3rd grade so that helps me to relate to those students.  I am pretty sure the 4th and 5th graders are going to be my favorite to work with!  I almost forgot what it's like to have students who actually know what they are working on, remember to come to speech on their own, and I can have conversations with!   

Anyway, Day 1 went pretty smoothly if I can say so myself.  With each and every day I love my job, and my life, a little more.  God has truly blessed me with some amazing things these past two months.  He has shown me that faith and trust in Him and belief in myself was the only way that I was going to achieve my dreams.  When I finally let go and let God handle things, it was like the path was outlined in gold and there was no way I could possibly be misguided.  Faith, Trust, Belief.  Three lessons I have learned and three words I will never take for granted.

Believe in yourself and in what you can do.
Believe in the goals that you strive to pursue.
Believe in the friends who believe in you, too...
Forever and always,
BELIEVE.