Cloud Nine

I have a lot to be thankful for, but the one thing that is making me the happiest today is my Algebra friend, "Henry." Henry and I work together a few times a week in his math class. When I first got assigned to him, I was told that he is very behind the other students and lacks a lot of fundamentals. He definitely struggled and was not able to keep up with the other students in class. We even started working on completely different, basic stuff in order to help him fill some of the gaps in his understanding.

Today, the class was working on the elimination method for solving simultaneous equations.

Sounds like fun, right?

Henry rocked it out today in class! He was able to do the problems (still with prompting) but with much more intuition and confidence than just three weeks ago! When the teacher gave the students an equation to double or triple and asked them to write the answer on their little whiteboard, Henry was right in there with the rest of the class, despite the very short amount of time the teacher allowed for answering.

When the teacher had the students begin working out some problems independently, Henry and I sped through about 5 and moved on ahead of the rest of the group because he got it! Seriously, I wanted to cry. I am so unbelievably proud of this guy. And I can tell by the look on his face that he is proud of himself which makes it even better. When I first met Henry, he barely spoke and I can just see his confidence increasing. He has started asking me questions and chatting sometimes (which is big).

Like I said, I have a lot to be thankful for, but today I am mostly thankful for the chance to help students realize their potential and to help them experience success in school.