Some days, you just write positive because it’s what will make you feel better about the day.  Today is one of those days.

We don’t celebrate enough, period.  We don’t celebrate birthdays (oh, I’m too old).  We don’t celebrate our classrooms (oh that’s bragging).  We don’t celebrate our professional successes (that’s bragging too).

Why not?

Yesterday, we looked at data dealing with oral fluency.  Over the last three testing periods, my students have declined and declined.  Our fall data didn’t look good at all.  So, we put something in place and we made gains.  Whoo hoo!  Now, not huge gains by any means, but gains all the same.  That’s worth a bit of a celebration, isn’t it?  The gains posted by many classrooms were great, which is what we are looking for when we put plans like this in place.

Sometimes, we need to indulge ourselves with that.  Again, why not?

We are beat up by so many different things: students (and lack of gain), parents, media, other teachers, reformers, and many more.  Talking about what we did well is so not in our nature.  Many of my favorite Twitter people talk about that idea of telling our story, keeping the positives out in the community because we just don’t do things like this.

So, my happy thought: celebrations.  Enjoy them.  Indulge yourself in them. Use them as a springboard to keep going forward.