My Kid Won The Awesome Teacher Lottery.

Game Boy has never really lucked out when it comes to the awesome teacher lottery. Oh I'm sure there is one. You have your average so so teacher that is pretty much there to do her job and that is about it. Then you have the golden teacher that not only does her job but loves it and cares about her kids. Game Boy finally won the lottery.

Here is a background on his previous teachers- His kindergarten teacher was awesome, let's face it you have to be some kind of wonderful to teach kindergarten, so she doesn't count. His first grade teacher was so so, nothing to swoon about. GB's second grade teacher had taught for 30 plus years and was on her last year before retiring. As you can probably imagine, she did what she needed to do and that was it. The burn out was obvious.
3rd grade is an important year for a kid, you've got multiplication thrown at you and cursive plus the dreded TAKS tests (Texas testing that is). I honestly don't think any of these things were solidly taught to GB. It was his 3rd grade teachers first year of teaching, not to mention the fact that she was pregnant and missed over half of the year. I rarely, if ever saw graded work taken home. I'm not sure if it was the kid not bringing it home or the teacher and many subs that didn't enforce taking it home.
I admit, I was pretty naive about the whole teacher situation. I just figured it was the "norm" for a public education. He was bringing home report cards and progress reports and his grades were "decent" and I guess I felt that was good enough. I didn't realize how much he lost out with such ineffective instruction.

Then along came Mrs. B. She not only loves her job, loves her students, but she loves the parents too and knows our(my) concerns for my child. I want to be her BFF and hang with her and do whatever BFF's do. I'm seriously serious about that. She reminds me so much of "Becky" in her personality/enthusiasm and looks that it's mind bending (maybe I've been missing on "Becky" here lately) how similar they are.

I knew I loved her after our first few e-mails. When we had our first parent teacher meeting earlier last month; she was not in the least bit of a hurry to speak with us and get us out the door. Something I felt all the time with his previous teachers. The instant I expressed my concerns about the TAKS, she knew instantly where I was going with it before I even got to the point I was trying to ask. The cherry on top is she has true concern for MY kid and knows he is smart and can succeed.

This extra attention and concern has been felt by my kid and I can tell he is truly doing his very best to succeed, not only for himself but I'm pretty sure for Mrs. B. too. He has never had this kind of heartfelt concern from a teacher and he knows this is something different.
Yesterday was the Math TAKS for 4th grade. I know that the schools of Texas put a considerable amount of pomp and circumstance for this week of testing. It really makes me sick..but that's a whole post all together. On top of all the TAKS hoopla, I found a note in GB's lunch box written by Mrs. B. It almost brought me to tears. She expressed her accolades of GB's success and knows and believes that he will be successful and that she is so down right proud of him. GB said she gave a letter to every kid, but this letter spoke volumes to me. This was not just a generic good luck on your test kind of letter, this was from the heart. You bet your bottom dollar I'm keeping that letter in his school keepsakes.

Thank you Mrs. B for your dedication and love for my child. I will always be grateful for everything you did for GB. I will miss you terribly next year and just cross my fingers that my next 2 boys win the awesome teacher lottery.