I thought about writing this blog post last night and I thought of my school leader conducting my very first performance review and commenting that I referred to my students as, “My kids.” I remember being touched by that observation and I was excited to write about it today. I was prompted by a Facebook friend’s meme. So many of my Facebook friends are former colleagues, former teachers of mine, former students of mine, and former classmates of mine!!!:
I reposted this meme and wrote on it that, “ I don’t teach anymore but anyone who was my student at CCA between 2005 and 2017 are STILL, “My kids”!!! Also, I love that another former teacher of mine commented that my brother did plumbing work at her house and he insisted on calling by her maiden name even though she has been married for 11 years and has a child now. That’s how we knew her when she taught at our school.
I remember telling Sean about students from the high school coming back to see me at the middle school. The young men who would come in, would walk-in and say, “Hello Ms. Rios.” To which I would always respond in a forced deep voice, “Hello [insert name here].” They always would laugh! I would remind them that I had them as students when they were 12 years old and before they hit puberty. Sean thought that was funny because he had already hit puberty. He thinks it’s funny that I would tell my students that but I liked it because they sounded so different from when they were my student and they are young men now!