As a teacher you constantly ask yourself, Am I reaching my students?” Am I being an effective educator? Am I making learning fun? Do the students understand the concepts I’m teaching? Do the students even like me? Am I making any kind of impact on their lives?

I spent a lot of time during my second student teaching placement reflecting. It was an exciting time of year – I started just before Halloween and left just before Christmas. The students were anxious for the upcoming holidays. The snow was starting to fall. And there I was – a new teacher to contend with.

There was one student who worried me a bit. I’ll call him E. E was a very bright and articulate child, but school didn’t seem to interest him much. He was more concerned with football. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to be exact. He loved Tom Brady, idolized him. On library day he always came back with a book about football or his favorite player or team. Months later my heart broke for him when the Giants won the Super Bowl. He was a cool kid. He didn’t like to participate in any of my silly dances or songs. He often seemed uninterested in whatever activity we were doing.

I soon began to followed his lead. When talking to him I tried to relate any new learning to football. I made math problems with a football theme. I studied Tom Brady. I watched the games. I was all football all the time with this kid. Still, was it working? I couldn’t be sure.

Then today, while waiting to check out at the grocery store, I looked up and saw E in front of me (shopping with his mom). A huge grin appeared on his face. “Hi!” he said. “Mom, this is one of my teachers.” I was melting. He remembered me! He was happy to see me.

We exchanged some small talk. “How’s your summer going? Are you playing a lot of football? Do you know who your teacher for next year will be?”

Just as he was about to exit the store he turned around. “Do you still have our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball stories?” You could have knocked me over with a feather! He remembered those stories? He liked those stories?

The class had been studying a unit on weather. We spent a few weeks learning about and discussing the weather. The water cycle, tornados, hurricanes, types of clouds, monsoons, snow, blizzards. You name it. We spent hours outside making weather observations. We made our own barometers.

Then we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – one of my favorite books. Students then had to choose their own food and weather occurrence — Raining With a Chance of Pizza, A Blizzard With a Chance of Cupcakes, etc. Using story maps the children authored and illustrated their own books. They loved it.

E did a wonderful job. His story was inventive and humorous, casting himself as the wisecracking meteorologist. He remained reserved during the process, and I couldn’t tell if E was truly interested in the project. Until today.