School may have just started but as we know that doesn’t stop screenings and evaluations from rolling in. I received a screening request the other day for a student who I didn’t know. When I went to get them from class, this kiddo knew exactly who I was. I thought they may have recognized me from getting some of my speech friends from classes in the past, but it turns out I was wrong. As I introduced myself to this new friend they said, “I know you, you’re the lady who always says ‘hi’ to me.” I smiled and just rolled with it. After the screening I was thinking about what my new little friend had said.
I make it a point to smile and greet every student I come in contact with during the day and if there is enough time, give them a compliment. I may have never directly met this student until the other day, but apparently, my greetings had not gone unnoticed. They proved to be helpful in that the student was already familiar with me instead of maybe being a bit reserved. That made me realized, even though many of the students I come in contact with during the day are not ‘mine‘, in that they are not ‘speech kids‘, they are all ‘mine‘. They can all benefit from a smile, greeting, a ‘good job’, or ‘cool shoes’. Not only would this be modeling good pragmatic skills 😉 it can help to pave the way and build a relationship if you have any of them as a student in the future.
How do you interact with the other kids in your building?
2 Responses
And some of those students need for just one person to be nice to them, and to smile and say hello. I make it a point to say “Good Morning” to every student I see at both of my schools, because we don’t know what kind of morning they’ve had, or what kind of night they had. They just need to know somebody cares enough about them to say hello and give them a smile.
Very true Mary, very true.