“After many struggling days with a student that was being defiant I was ready to give up. With the help of his teacher, we developed a reward system for working hard and getting his work done in my class but nothing was helping. The student would be on target one day and bouncing off the walls and refusing to do his work the next. You never knew what you were going to get when the student walked into the room. I began to use fun and educational games to get the students in the group up and moving to hopefully add a little fun to the group while the students were learning and practicing their math at the same time. But in the end, I was still struggling with the one student, to the point where we would both be in tears at the end of the day. When one day the clouds seem to open up and I saw the light. The student was working with his main teacher during recess one day with his multiplication facts and attributed his learning to me. When I heard that he referenced me to some of his success, my heart broke. After all the hard work and the struggling we did together I never thought he would attribute some of his success to me; the teacher that he said would never let him have fun. After hearing of his success with his multiplication facts I had more energy than ever, it was so refreshing to hear that my hard work was actually paying off for someone else.”
Brittany DeMarchi PMSC AmeriCorps Member
Latrobe Elementary School
Latrobe, Pa
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