A Special Part of Me

Well it's the end of the year and I start to doubt myself as to whether or not I covered enough, did enough or am good enough to be teaching these beautiful children. But then, we had an AMAZING day! I have a child who struggles with certain aspects of learning. We have not had her tested yet, but we believe it is some sort of dyslexia. She has been struggling with multiplication and memorizing her facts. We have tried pretty much everything and I finally just gave her the table and had her look it up and we moved on to double digits. This child is so intelligent that she can't just learn something, she has to understand every aspect of it. She has to take it to such a level that sometimes I wonder who is really teaching whom? The other day was not a good day and as her frustration level grew, so did mine. Pretty soon I realized that we were not going to accomplish anything, so I closed the book, took her hands in mine and looked her in the eyes and we made a pact.
We have decided that when she reaches her frustration level (even if it's just while I give directions), then we will come back to that lesson at another time. Well...it worked!!! The next day we tried again, with patience, and it worked. It took awhile, but she understood. I love our math curriculum because it is very manipulative and hands on. She was able to understand how when you multiply double digits, you can automatically start counting hundreds. It was wonderful. She felt good about herself and I realized that no other teacher would care for her the way I do because she is a part of me, a very special part of me.