We had our awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago. We did it at lunch. The kids got dressed up and the parents came and there were handshakes and pictures and it was all very celebratory. And then I got my fourth period class, which also happens to be my homeroom.
A few of them got awards. We had some perfect attendance, a PE award, and a technology award. I was very proud. But I have the ESOL homeroom. Nineteen ESOL kids, 10 of whom also have IEPs. Theyâre not an academically accelerated group. Their grades arenât as high as the advanced class; many of them have repeated at least one grade, and some are likely to repeat this year. They donât win poetry contests or get scholarships to fancy summer camps. They just get by ⊠sometimes.
And they were reminded of that at the awards ceremony, watching their peers get recognized for academic excellence. So instead of reviewing direct and indirect objects at the beginning of class, hereâs what I told my kids.
âLook, those of you who won awards, congratulations. We are so proud of you today and every day. Especially those perfect attendance awards. I know itâs hard to be here every single dayâI certainly havenât managed itâso Iâm very impressed by those of you who have. You guys have worked really hard this year, and you should be proud of what youâve accomplished.
And to those of you who didnât win anything, we are so proud of you today and every day. Because the fact is, we can only give out so many awards. Especially in a 25-minute lunch period. But you guys amaze me every day, whether you get awards for it or not. The way Andreaâs baby brotherâs face lit up when he saw her? That deserves an award. The way Marco hugged his mom, made sure she had a chair, and opened her car door for her? I would be so incredibly proud if he were my son. There should be an award for the fact that Guadalupe never lets anyone sit alone in the cafeteria, the way that Monserrat organized our class party, and the way Angel always volunteers to answer questions even if heâs not sure heâs right, just because he wants to learn.â
My kids were sitting up a little straighter now. I had more focused attention from them than Iâd had at any point prior to this in the school year, so I kept going.
âWe put so much focus on your academic achievements here, which makes sense, because itâs a school and thatâs what weâre here for. And itâs true that you need to do well in school because you want to be successful in the future. But you are so much more than your grades or your test scores or even what your teachers think of you.
Hear me on this: whether you win awards, whether you make all Aâs, whether youâre able to sit still for an entire class period has absolutely no bearing on your worth as a human being. You are a precious, wonderful, miraculous individual if you fail every single class and get suspended four times this year.
I want you to succeed. I want you to do your absolute best. And I want you to go on to great things. But I also want you to know that youâre already great, just as you are right now. We, your teachers, are overwhelmed by your awesomeness every single day, even if you donât win awards for your math and reading skills.â
I closed the door for a little focused profanityâthe absolute best way to get seventh graders to remember what you say.
âSchool is hard for every single one of you. And you show up every day. You work your asses off and I could not possibly be prouder.â
And then we went back to grammar.
Maybe this sounds like âeverybody gets a trophy.â But these kids deserve a damn trophy. If they show up at school ready to learn despite homelessness, despite poverty, despite fear of deportation, despite exhaustion and hunger and lack of a clean school uniform, they deserve everything we can possibly give them. Some of them will test out of ESOL and move to a more advanced class next year. Thatâs wonderful. Some wonât. But if they leave my class with a sense of their own value, this year wonât have been in vain.
