30-Day Blogging Challenge: Day 9

Day 9:
Write about one of my biggest accomplishments in my teaching that no one knows about (or may not care.)


As a librarian, I work with all of the kids. One day I had a message on my phone from a parent. She was calling to tell me that she caught her son reading with a library book a flashlight under the blankets when he was supposed to be asleep. This may not sound like any big deal, because kids who loved to read often do this, but she was thrilled. Her son had never never finished a book, didn't like to check books out, and resisted reading. He was in 5th grade, an underachiever with behavior issues. I had to do a really hard sell to get him to even take the book, Owls in the family, by Farley Mowat. This kid was an outdoor boy, who loved to be outside, and was in many ways ill-suited to sitting for hours in a classroom. This book is about a boy who became a naturalist, and the story is about how Mowat rescued two orphaned owlets after a bad storm This caught his imagination, and he finished the book in a couple of days (and nights). His mom was so excited, and I kept the message on my phone until we changed systems, and it went away forever. He never knew that his mom called me, but he did tell me that he finished the book. It was a sweet moment that I've always remembered.