learning from the simple.

i've been learning a lot from my students in the past week.
their innocence and simplicity can surprise you. crack a smile. and some days make you laugh out loud.

the soon to be heart-throb of the class, Coleman, has been the one to seek attention from his classmates. he would answer the questions asked and shout out answers even when there was no question.
within the past couple of weeks he has been more silent. giving answers when called upon.
when asking his mom about this at parent teacher conferences she said, "well. we've been working on humbleness at home. learning how to not always be first or heard. maybe that has something to do with it."

a nine year old child reminding me to be humble.

Nick is a fun-loving child who loves football and learning all that he can get his hands on.
today i was teaching a lesson about tropical rain forest. the students were reading about tropical rain forest in their science textbook and then writing the things they learned in a venn diagram.
as i'm floating around the classroom i see Nick has his hand raised. i walk up to his desk and this is what he tells me, "Miss Conlee. the last sentence in our text book is wrong. it's not true."
i look at the book and it reads, "The tropical rain forest has huge numbers of insects. No one has ever named them all." i asked Nick why he thought that statement wasn't true and he looks at me with determined eyes and says, "because Adam was the first man on this earth. and God named EVERYTHING! i know that because my mom goes to church."

i smiled. gave Nick a thumbs up and said, "you're right Nick. and there sure are a lot of insects in our world!"

we may grow up. but we're never done learning.
and sometimes what we learn comes from the simplicity of the ones we're teaching.