It's a Small World

On Monday I check in with all of my slicers who are participating in this month's challenge. I have a chart where we keep track of each slice written. Some of the students just show me their slice with no mention about what it is they did over the weekend, while many are excited to share. One girl in my first class of the afternoon wrote about shopping for an Easter dress with her sister and mother and having dinner at Mr. and Mrs. Petro's house in Albion.

I stopped right in my tracks and asked, "Mr. and Mrs. Petro who used to teach in Albion?"

She said, "Yes. My mom used to have Mrs. Petro for a first grade teacher. We see them a lot."

I couldn't believe it! Mr. Petro was the teacher I student taught for in the mid-nineties. And here was a writing student of mine who has dinner at his house.

I am always amazed by these chance encounters. Where the world seems much smaller than it is. All afternoon I thought about Mr. Petro. I was fortunate to be able to student teach for an outstanding teacher.

He was a calm man who had control of his classroom. In 1996, when I student taught in his fifth grade classroom, he had 21 boys and six girls. Yes, you read that correctly. And it wasn't a big space. But those kids were big. And some days I wondered if we were all going to fit. Especially on the hot and humid ones.

Students did not have assigned seats in his classroom, but instead they came in each day and found a spot to sit. The students didn't rush or push and shove. This was because he took the time to train them how to select a seat and eventually it became second nature.

Mr. Petro was a social studies and history teacher of the year. I think his love of bringing history alive through projects is where I found my voice in teaching. For many years I taught social studies, and I modeled a lot of what I did, off of how he taught.

I loved student teaching for Mr. Petro. He was honest and always straight forward with me. When I messed up or couldn't keep control of the class, he would always sit down with me after school and offer suggestions making sure to explain the why behind his what.

I hadn't thought of Mr. Petro in a really long time. And I am so thankful that my one student chose to write one of her weekend slices about him.

I like to reflect where I started out teaching. It makes me thankful that I had a great mentor teacher and happy to know that I have grown so much as an educator since then.