This made my heart smile.....

Rose #1: Found in a student's journal:

"The way I react to coming in 2nd or 3rd place is that you did your best and came out strong. One time, I was at church and they was talking about racing. I learned that it didn't matter if you came out 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. The only words they should hear is 'well done.'"

Rose #2: My journals in general! I haven't been good about reading them over the past couple of weeks, but every week I choose an article from izzit.org's Current Events archives. Students respond to a question. These journals impressed me at first mostly because the students who started off writing very short responses that basically just reiterated class discussion or summarized the article began writing longer responses and including personal examples. Now I'm noticing that students have become, for the most part, so thoughtful in their responses.

I hope you stopped to smell the roses today!