Today.

Today Tyrone was honest with me. I think that was a first: “Yes YOU expect me to read but I don’t expect myself to read ... but I do appreciate your expectation.” And proceeded to complete all of his work.

Today Stephen spelled the word “paid” as “payed.”

Today Marquette actually wrote out an equation in slope-intercept form given the slope and the y-intercept, all by himself. Marquette still didn’t know what 5*2 was. But we used a calculator – and he was still able to graph the lines to the system of equations.

Today Naya asked me how to spell the word “stuff,” “personally,” “even” and “when.”

Today Darius read “Bat” as “bat,” “bash” as “bus,” “85” as “58,” “231” as “123,” and wrote “of” as “fo” two consecutive times, even after the phrase with the correct spelling of the word “of” was right above what he was writing.

Shakeda just didn’t know what the word “profit” was. And neither did India or Roberta.

Today Darius verbalized what I had feared him saying all along: “I just don’t do my work and am never in class because I don’t know how to read – it’s too hard. I know, I’m stupid!” Darius has been suspended numerous times and has accumulated over 45 days of out-of-school suspension. Darius is a father of a 2-year old. He is 15-years old.

Today was also the day he said: “This is the first time I am actually finishing up my classwork! Ms. Pereda, gimme a stamp! C’mon – this is too much. Can I go now? I gatta go. But ok, let me finish this first. No! Don't leave me - i think I got this.”

He finished his classwork assignment and received the highest grade he has received all year - a 92%.