Lesson planning for the last week before Christmas Break is an obstacle course of candy cane hurdles and sugar rush spirals. After nearly a decade of teaching, I have learned to not attempt to control the "crazy train", but instead become the conductor and turn that “crazy train” into a “Polar Express”. 

My students, who are ESL students, come from all over the globe and their holiday traditions are varied as they come from different religious and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, I used that last week before break as a "crash course" on the American traditions of the "Holidays' '. We talked about Santa Clause, Haunakka, Kwanzaa, Christmas Trees, Dreidels, and Gingerbread Houses. 

My high schoolers were so engaged and eager to learn as they continue to learn and transition into their new culture. They were excited to learn new vocabulary, practice “Seasons’ Greetings”, and sing-along to Christmas music. Their childlike excitement inspired me to extend the lesson and include more activities that one would not consider “high school level”.

The first activity, I must admit, is extremely elementary, but something in me told me that my students would enjoy the activity…and that activity was, writing a letter to Santa. I printed out a gorgeous template and added additional scaffolding to support my ESL students (sentence frames, visuals, word banks). Then, I did a “live writing” in front of them in order to teach them proper formatting for a letter and how to make pleasantries before jumping straight into your “want list” for Santa. Once finishing my modeling I asked, “Ok, before we begin, who has done this before?” and to my surprise, not one of them had. I smiled and said, “How fun!”. 

As I circled around the room helping with spelling and unknown vocabulary I saw all of my students being so attentive to every detail. I reflected back to my middle school teaching days and how many students at that age were so over the idea of Santa or any other whimsical idea or innocent fun and they would often scoff at an activity such as this. But, not these students. They indulged in the activity and I caught myself holding back some tears as I read their “wish list”. Their wants were so simple as many of them asked for chocolates, a teddy bear, and a new pair of shoes. There were no “IPhone 15s” on their list nor a new “Playstation 5”. Their lists were the most humble that I have seen in my ten years of teaching. 

Those letters further inspired me to create some further classroom magic by buying some Gingerbread House making kits for the students to assemble on one of our last days together. None of my students had done this activity before and I shared with them that I hadn’t either as it’s not something that in my own culture that we do regularly! They were excited to share a “first experience” with me and they worked gingerly with their fragile supplies and built beautiful little homes without licking any frosting. 
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This last week before break was a special one. I enjoyed bringing some festive joy to my students who have endured so much already in their short lives. It was a pleasure to give them a space of childlike joy and celebration. We delighted in simplicity, ate the chocolates that they asked for from Santa, and enjoyed the community and friendship that we have built across cultures, religions, and languages.
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"Ms. Montoya, can I teach you how to say 'Happy New Year' in Vietnamese?". This question rolled off the toungue of one of my excited sixth grade boys. Frankly, he was pumped and wanted to teach me important words/phrases in preparation for our celebration of the Lunar New Year on February 12th.

This was my school's first formal recognition of the worldwide holiday and I felt the need to birth the celebration into existence due to our school's high population of Vietnamese students. This is a holiday that is traditional and of importance to my Asian students. And, what is important to my students is important to me. 

Therefore, we pushed the plan forward and decided tp make February 12th a day to not only honor the Lunar New Year, but to also honor our Vietmanese students. The honoring of their culture communicates a desire to know them in the full context of their identity. We are acknowledging those traditions that they hold dear and inturn we are teaching our non-Vietanmese students about a culture that is not theres. 

Here is a summary of the magic that we were able to create on that day.

• Students were encouraged to ditch their uniform for the day and to wear red. We also encouraged our students to wear their traditional Vietnamese garb. We had about 15 students come in their traditional dress...and man, did they look stunning! Their beauty was excuded not only through their dress, but also in their pride. My Vietnamese students seemed to walk a little taller that day...proud of their heritage. 
• Each classroom decorated one of their classroom doors as a red envelope. The red enveleope is an important symbol and practice during the Lunar New Year. They are given as gifts to the young and are signs of prosperity and good luck. Each of the classrooms did a beautiful job decorating their door and encouraging this activity at the begnning of the week increased excitment for the celebration on Friday.
• The high point of our celebration took place during the lunch period. We decorated our "Irish Green" gym with as much red and gold as possible. We covered the tables, hung red paper lanterns, used an ungodly amount of red crepe paper, played traditional music, and qued the projector to play a brief slideshow/video to teach about the Lunar New Year. The lunch functioned as a "Learning Lunch" or a "Dinner and Show" format. The students took their seats and were engaged. Success!
• Followng the video the students  got to come up to retrieve their conmplinentary Vietnamese eggroll and special red envelope. The eggrolls were generosly donated by one of our Vietnamese families and the red envelopes were donated by one of our staff members. Each of the red envelopes had a "prize" inside which varied from a "free dress down day" to an invitation to "help Mr. Caudle lead morning prayer". However, one special envelope had the highly coveted 2 Dollar Bill which is traditionally seen as "lucky money". 

The day was a huge success. The entire school was beautiully decorated. The students wore red and the traditional Vietnmases garb was breath-taking. The lunch and learn went perfectly and the kids were engaged, excited, and appreciative. Although all these aspects made for a glorious day, the most important element was the pride that I saw in my Vietnamese students. They seemed to walk a little taller. They shared their culture and customs openly with their fellow classmates and served as leaders and teachers for the day.

It was a very happy Lunar New Year and I hope that this celebration will be a new tradition for my school. 

By signing up to be a teacher, you sign up to wear many hats. 

One of the most important hats you will wear during the course of the day is the "Middle School Cheerleader" cap. 

A good cheerleader brings the energy, brings the smiles, and brings the fun. A good cheerleader is also an encourager. She's the one who sees when the team or individual is loosing stream and finds the right words or moves to energize.

The cheerleader cap as an educator is one of the most important. A strong teacher is one who can influence the energy of the room and infuse joy and positivity while also remaining aware of the energy in the room and what is needed to manipulate it. 

One important skill that I recently taught my students was the importance of being one's own cheerleader. I told them, "You know who is the only person who will be with you your whole life?". One of my sarcastic seventh graders replied, "My mom". The class laughed and I reminded him of the realities of life expectancy. Then, I said, "That person who will be with you your whole life, is you. And you know what? Most of the time we are the most critical person in our lives. Our self talk is negative. We routinely beat ourselves up for small mistakes. We are not good cheerleaders for ourselves.". The silence in the room as I spoke let me know that they were listening and that the words struck a cord with their reality. 

After my introductory speech, I then showed them one of my favorite practices for being one's own cheerleader: affirmations. I posted several links on their google classroom that gave them examples of "I am" affirmations. We read through a few on the list and then I proceeded to show them a page of my own journal. I showed them how I routinely use affirmations to start my day. The affirmations early in the morning serve as a "pump-up talk" like before a big basketball game. Sports metaphors always seem to help middle schoolers because one of my girls said, "Oh yeah, like when you're down in the fourth quarter and you need words of encouragement so you can hit the big shot!". "Exactly!", I said, "It's just like that, but the big shot ahead of you is the rest of the day". I then read off some of my own affirmations (a move of vulnerability...middle schoolers love and admire vulnerability). Some were as follows: "I am a hurricane of a woman", "I am a woman who lets positivity and joy radiate", "I am a woman of love in love with life", "I am force of nature", "I am of great influence", "I see beauty in everything around me", etc. 

The vulnerability and the concrete examples excited the kids and they were excited to be their own cheerleaders. They engaged in the activity for a solid 45 minuets and the silence was telling. The kids were feeding themselves. They were encouraging themselves. They were being their own cheerleader.

This is an exercise that I plan to use routinely throughout the year and I hope that many will continue the practice as they advance forward into the wildness of life. I hope they learn to be their own cheerleader because if you're not your biggest fan...then who is?