Culture sneaks in....
When I respond calmly to their anger.
When I recognize good behavior.
When I teach from the doorway because my para is absent and I have a student who needs to take a walk to calm down. He paces while I teach and watch all of my babies from my maroon poster covered door.
When they call each other out for being disrespectful.
When they greet me with a firm handshake and good eye contact.
When they ignore Jose who sometimes crawls across the floor like a catepillar because they respect the fact that he is still learning how to calm himself down.
When they run up to hug me after recess and the boys - the ones that are too cool for that - give me a little wave from way across the school yard.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today he won the lottery.
The kid who was supposed to be the toughest - who hides in closets (not this year mind you) - finally won the lottery.
He held his bag of cookies and danced around the room. When classmates offered to pay him for a cookie he responded in a voice that sounded a little too much like mine.
"You can't buy success," he said. "Hard work pays off!"
And that is how we left. With them all parroting my phrase in one context or another.
They're buying it - so am I.

Now for reading. I just got their scores back. 2 of my third graders don't even test at a beginning kindergarten level.
Kiddos - we've got a lot of work to do.