The Power of a Note

I've been without internet at home for two weeks now which has made blogging much more difficult.  And planning.  And grading.  On the brightside, I've read three books!  Who has time to do that during the school year?!

A couple of weeks ago, I had been struggling with the behavior of and attitude from a girl in one of my classes.  Then one day, out of the blue, she walks in and says to me, "I'm going to have a good class today."  She sat in her assigned seat without complaint, completed all of the classwork, and ignored the poor behavior of some of her classmates instead of getting involved and arguing with them.  At the end of class, I thanked her and told her that I thought she had a really good class.  I really wanted that to stick with her, so that night, I wrote her a thank you note.

I used to have a memo pad of sticky notes like this; when they ran out, I figured I could make my own and just use regular paper.

In the note, I thanked her again for making the decision to have a good class, that I was proud of her, and that she really had made my day!  Since giving her the note, her behavior and attitude have really improved.  She came to academic support today after school and I noticed that she had the note I had written her tucked into her phone case.  It made me really happy to see that she kept the note in a special place, and it makes me wonder how many other "difficult" students I could reach in a similar way.  How much more of an impact does a written note have than verbal praise in class?