Woodland Seniors of 2019 - 9 Years Ago

After spending a school term with third graders, they will occupy a special place in my heart as long as I have a memory - with more memories than this blog posting can contain.

The official group photograph taken by Blunck Studio, Inc. is at the end of this posting.

Photos from Nine Years Ago

                Nine years seem such a short time in my life, but the subjects of these photos would disagree. The students are right because they have changed a great deal.

                The photos show third graders in the 2009/2010 school term. I taught the twenty-four children that year with Ruby Bentley serving as an invaluable teaching assistant.

                As I perused the faces of these students, I calculated that twelve of these students had one parent who had been a third grader in my classroom or had been a first, second, or third grade music student of mine.

                Now many of these students are graduating seniors of 2019 from Woodland High School based in Fairfax, Oklahoma. They are within weeks of exiting their secondary education experience.

                A few memories came to mind when I saw their faces. As an educator, I enjoyed monitoring their leisure reading by looking at the results of their Accelerated Reading quizzes. It gave them such latitude in their reading choices with hundreds of book choices at their “comfortable” reading level. Students  answered questions specific to the book they chose. What celebration they felt when they accomplished answering 100% of their books' quiz questions correctly!  The instant quiz results provided  immediate feedback to the students and an evaluation supplying a myriad of analysis tools for me.

Kneeling - Tori Shanks, Shelby Nutt, and Kayla Wilkey
Standing - Kalie Burch, Eryn Lynn, Kaylee Terry, and Hannah Tate

                Early in the year some students became involved in a low level of bullying on the playground.  That must come to a screeching halt. I grabbed a book entitled Let’s Talk About Bullying, created a form with some criteria i.e. read book, be prepared to be involved in a discussion of it, and sign the  form. I placed the book and the form in a portfolio. One of the students was chatting with me in March, over six months after the initial event, and asked, “Miss Gates, when are we going to discuss that book?” I asked if everyone had read the book and casually said, “We need to get around to that.” We never discussed the book but had no recurrences of problems with that issue.

                A couple of students were avid gamers. As I visited with them at the lunch table, I always encouraged them to get out and shoot some hoops. One day, one of them with a twinkle in his eye quipped, “Miss Gates, we shot some hoops yesterday.” I began bragging on their choice to get their bodies moving—more that just their thumbs. He burst my bubble by saying it was a basketball VIDEO game they played!

Matthew Robertson, Coleman Langley, Hunter Garrett, Patrick Fitzgerald, and
Mitchell Harrington

                Late in the school year, the third graders enjoyed Career Day at Pioneer Technology Center. During the tour, some mention was made by the tour guide about writing their biography or their life story. One of these smart students spoke respectfully to the guide, “I think you mean autobiography.” I was so pleased because we tried daily to correct one another respectfully in the classroom. For it to have been put into practice on the tour made my day as their teacher.

                As I looked at the eager faces, I recalled so many successes. In my memory, I saw beaming students excited to master multiplication facts, thrilled to put a challenging number sentence on the math meeting board, or shyly smiling when I quipped after an answer, “You are smarter than you think!”

                I remember their tenacious play during the WES Basketball Festival. Cheering was a challenge initially for me since they were playing against each other. I decided to alternate sitting a  quarter at a time behind their teams. Some of them were surprised to see how competitively I could “whoop and holler” for their play.

Kneeling - Taylor Johnston and Maci Mashburn
Standing - Madison Lytle, Jaiden Holloway, and
Deserae Wood

                Every child achieved success as a writer when they composed tributes to their mothers in late April and early May. They learned to create a rough draft, proofread, and then got a couple of peer proofreaders before I ever saw their writing. Those days of writing remain as one of my favorite times as a teacher. I think the seniors of 2019 WHS enjoyed the writing process, too.

                We ended our third grade year with a study of Fairfax history. During that unit of study, I introduced them to the Osage Reign of Terror. Every year I related to the third graders how my maternal grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, as a student nurse, had walked past the horrible aftermath following the bombing of the Smith home in March of 1923. One curious third grader asked, “What did she see?” I responded that it wasn’t appropriate to discuss with children their age, but if they would ask me when they reached high school, I would tell them. One student from this class of 2019 asked a couple of years ago what Grandma saw. That’s an interested learner!

Justin Ray, Jacob Mashburn, Gage Paslay, Dilon Broughton, and Logan Epperly

                Finally, these photos remind me of the daily proverbs said each morning by these students. One of the quotes caught my eye. The quote by Scott Hamilton, the Olympic gold medalist who has battled cancer, impacted me as I think of these students graduating.

                For Seniors of 2019, this quote from third grade by Scott Hamilton can serve as a worthwhile touchstone for success.

The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

Scott Hamilton

A teachable attitude opens our understanding to God’s plan. Embracing these words from the Bible provide promise for a future of peace and hope because of heartfelt trust in who He is and what He desires for our lives.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

Congratulations  to the Woodland High School Class of 2019!