It’s my prep period. My desk is overflowing with an alarming amount of grading that I’ve procrastinated and resented. I need to plan two separate lessons for tomorrow, and I carry with my no small cloud of stress with me at any given time. So prep periods are sacred, stress relieving times where teacher gets to play catch up.

But I have to stop, ignore the pile and swipe away my stress cloud,  so I can record what just happened in my classroom. I’ve never had more fun in my class than I had just now.

We’ve finished Cry, the Beloved Country. It is a book that can be simple, as several of my students have already requested that it be. (Can’t it just be a nice story, Penrod? Do we really have to analyze it?”) OR this book can speak.

In a class of 34 students, every single student commented. Stop! Before you think, no big deal, realize the MONUMENTAL FEAT that is overcoming extreme social introversion. Imagine shy. Double it. Picture him commenting. Now picture him commenting twice while the class organically (no prompting from me) chants his name and a shy smile comes across his face. Now imagine students repeatedly addressing Shy Student’s comment–not in a patronizing way, but because he added genuine insight to the text.

Now imagine students organically and collectively snapping as a peer stumbled across an amazing insight. Imagine them pausing from the discussion to propose a system of organized snapping, and deciding on moments when we’d say “Can I get an AMEN?!”

Imagine several students commenting on the chills that they got as we discussed the book. Imagine ten or so students saying they love this book now. Imagine students clapping at the end of the discussion when I told them I’ve never had this much fun as a teacher. My students made it possible.

So I apologize for this hastily and poorly written explanation of my class today. But today it doesn’t matter if my writing was bad; my teaching was good. And my students were incredible.