 We're a new little speed dating with poetry, so we're going to start with one of the poems that you all have written. They are anonymous on here, right? So your name is not on it, but they're all poems that we've written. So remind, the rest are yours. And I want us to kind of read through them and kind of see each other's work and what you guys have written. They're really fun. They're great poems. So what you saw today was a classroom where students were allowed to read each other's work. They have a chance to write poetry about their lives and where they come from, who they are as people, what they value, where they want to go, their hopes, their dreams, what people can't see about them, how people judge them, how they feel about life, kind of where they are now. As an English teacher, I know that more than any other classroom, I can really empower them to be themselves, to express themselves, figure out who they are. There's times where they go through days and don't speak to anybody about their lives. They feel that no one really cares about what they have to say or who they are. And so as an English teacher, they're able to come in here and open up in a way that they probably haven't done before. One time, a model classroom, to me, is a relaxed, chilled place, because I'm not a really reader, really, like that. But when I first got to his class, it made me realize that reading is much more than what I thought it was. Students come into my classroom and they know that they have their book out and they'll start reading. But a lot of times, we'll just say, you know, put that on hold for a second and say, all right, what's going on? Let's, you know, what happened this weekend? Does anyone need to share? I may know something that's already happened. A lot of times, the audits ask and they may come up out of nowhere, oh, you know, something that's happened to my brother or my cousin or things that I wouldn't even know. When you create a culture where they feel safe to share that, you'll know things that you would never normally know. He greets us every day, hey, how you doing? Make sure we got a good mindset before we walk in. It's all about relationships. It starts with relationships. It ends with relationships. And that's what I pride myself on. Any line that makes you smile makes you laugh. I think a lot of relationship building happens before class starts, before the bell rings, those in-between moments where you'll never seem to sit at my desk. You can put a little comment. I love your, thanks for writing your poem. I love, I love this line. I see hearts just great. Like if we tell him that a certain topic we don't understand it or like it, he'll ask the students to help him because we know more about each other than he does. So he helps us help each other. He gives us a say in what we want to do. So he'll make sure that we learn, but like he'll make sure that we get to discuss the topics by ourselves. So he'll be in charge, but we kind of work through the class and do everything together as a group. The lessons are learning, but they're also fun because we're interested in the topics that he's learning about. If we're just sitting there, he'll come up to us and just ask us a question about maybe a book we're reading and then we get to talk to him about that. If you try to teach content without having that relationship, you're not going to get through a lot of those kids. You can't do this. You don't think you can do this one? Just look like you're, you'll have to be alive a little bit. People are going to say this, they're going to think that I've like made a friend of your aunt, your dog, or I've made you cry. They're going to think that I'm, I've done something to you. Do you think you'll be okay? This is, you're the one that your poems on here is probably my favorite. Just, just in, relax. It would be very easy just to put, you know, to put him out. And then what happens? He goes home on a week, especially it's a Friday afternoon, two o'clock. And so what he spends the last hour in ISS or in the hallway, mad at himself or mad at me or, or just an even worse move. But what happened now, we, we stuck with it. We got through it. I didn't think it was going to end sadly though. He had a great time and he left going to the weekend, you know, feeling good about himself and about, you know, about life. It's hard, right? Because I tell teachers to be consistent, but you also have to recognize that each kid is different. And the approach you may use at one child is going to be different than another. And you have to be willing to be flexible and also be humble enough to just say, it's not about me as a, as a teacher. He's going through something. We'll work it out. Life is, life is good. And we'll, we'll work through it. Soccer, who wrote soccer? Ramon did. See? The ability to build a relationship at a high school level is really valuable. And they need it. And I think they, we forget that, you know, they're still just 15 or 16 years old going through, through life and they're going to need people to listen to and talk to. And I think my advice to teachers looking to build better relationships is, is we need you to do it. It's not about whether you want to. It's they need you to do it. Their parents need you to do it. And, and as another, as a fellow teacher, I need you to do it because it's, it's something that it can't be one person doing it. It can't be the guidance counselor. It can't just be the English teacher. It can't just be the parent. It's got to be a lot of adults caring about kids all the time. And when kids go to school where everybody, they know that every teacher cares. I mean, that's, that's what you want.