Darktober

I’ve heard many people refer to October as Darktober. I’m not sure if that’s in relation to first year teachers, to Teach For America teachers, or to teachers in general, but I’ve heard it over and over and over.

Last week (around the beginning of October) was awful. Multiple kids were off the Pride each day. My classroom culture was very negative. I’m not sure how much teaching and learning got done. It was a mess.

This week, the only thing that is messy is my house. And it’s not even THAT messy (thanks, Mom). Things are going really well. I’m scared of this momentum feeling I have because I know what happened last time, BUT let’s talk about the wins.

Family Saturday. It’s awesome because I get to see my kids and their families learning and having fun together. I get to see my kids show off all the things they have learned, and I get to see the pride in their parents. My mom and sister were there for this Family Saturday, which was pretty cool for both my kids and me.

I’ve started a club where I hold 3-4 kids after school for an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. It’s called the Hokie Cub Club (Catchy, right?!). That’s a really special time where I can hang out, have fun with my kids, and focus in on skills that we need to work on. No matter what kind of day I have, those make it brighter.
Ryan seems like a completely different kid. For the past couple of weeks, Ryan has chosen not to follow directions. When given the choice if he’d like to fix it himself or if he’d like me to help him, it invariably came down to me helping him (which is holding him in criss cross cub paws, on his nap mat, in line with his arms straight, etc.). He was an angry little guy. I’m not sure what’s happened, but this week he’s been so much better. He’s made a couple of mistakes (like all kids), but he’s fixed them right away. I was able to hang out with him this afternoon at the Hokie Cub Club and further develop a relationship with him. I think we’re getting somewhere..

Nicholas is still making a lot of mistakes. Today, he finalized not earning our field lesson to the pumpkin patch next Monday. He was angry. He was sad. He said he wasn’t coming back to school tomorrow. Well, he was staying after school for the Hokie Cub Club today, too. When his mom came and picked him up, he said, “I don’t want to go home yet.” Baby steps..

The Hokie Bird. That’s really all I have to say. That little bird has enhanced my classroom culture tremendously. My mom gave me two small, plush Hokie Birds. This week, I off-handedly told my kids that if they were making really good choices, they could hold the Hokie Bird. They love those little guys. You couldn’t imagine the difference in results between “I’ll wait until everyone is sitting criss cross cub paws” and “Oh, thanks for sitting criss cross cub paws, Brandon. You can hold the Hokie Bird for a few minutes.” Night and day..

We’ve started our next round of reading assessments this week. Most of my kids are moving up to the next level (some are really close to moving up two levels), and that’s just awesome. My kids are learning. I’m not doing an awful job at teaching.

I’m working 12 hour days (at least), and it doesn’t feel like it anymore. It just feels like a day.

My class is learning our third Virginia Tech cheer (Hokie Hi).

I’m feeling great. There are other reasons for that feeling outside of school too, obviously, but a class full of 16 kindergarteners is more volatile than everything else in my life.. Most other things I’ve got under control. And hopefully I’m starting to have my class under control, too…

That was a lot of text, so here's a cute video of our 2026 Cubs!