A League of Extraordinary Students

If you have followed my blog for a while, you might recall that I enjoy posting about how I decorate my classroom. For the past two years, my classroom was Tolkien themed (see here), but this year I decided to go in a different direction. Not all of my students had seen The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings movies, and I wanted something 99% of them could get excited about (okay, so maybe it's only 75%, but it works). 

This year, I went with superheroes. Superheroes are everywhere now, so it wasn't hard to find things that worked in my room. Thanks to Pinterest, I created some pretty incredible bulletin boards, and I had a lot of helping finding things at the teacher store (thanks, Katie and Mallory!). Take a look: 









I could have included loads more pictures of every time piece of superhero-related paraphernalia which decorates my walls, but I decided to refrain. I want to focus, however, on a quote that is on one of my posters:
 
This is my classroom philosophy this year. Every kiddo that walks through my door has a secret identity, a part of them I will never know but is greatly affected by the part of them that I see every day. Most superheroes are one bad experience away from being super-villains, and in an odd way, I feel that applies greatly to teaching. Every kid has potential, but how do they use that potential? Do they use it for good, or for evil? I love what I do. I love that I get to work around these superheroes-in-the-making every day. Yes, we have amazing days. Yes, we have days when Miss Fink turns into She-Hulk. We have days where we make great strides. We have days when we actually seem to move backward rather than forward. BUT...beyond all the testing and the SLOs and the standards we have to hit and the reteach we have to do and the re-reteaching that eventually comes to pass and the evaluations and the PLCs and all the headaches the kids never see...if I can get these kiddos to believe in themselves...to see themselves as superheroes with unlimited possibilities...to feel like a valued member of our classroom community...to have confidence in their abilities...and to use the abilities they have to their fullest potential...then I have done my job, and everyone else can kiss my cape. 

~Stay gold!

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