Dayenu-A Yom Kippur Thought

Today is Yom Kippur, so I went to temple for services. The rabbi's sermon focused on the hebrew word, דַּיֵּנוּ or roughly transliterated, dayenu (pronounced die-ay-new). Roughly translated dayenu means "it would have been enough for us". We sing this song during Passover, when we celebrate the exodus from Egypt. In the song, we basically say that if God hadn't have performed all of the 15 miracles of the exodus, but only one or two of them, it would have been enough. The rabbi spoke about saying dayenu to wanting more things. Ok, fair enough.
Obviously this has to relate to the classroom in some way. (You can learn more about the song here.) I think it relates to some blogs I've been reading lately about children not being challenged enough in self contained classrooms. And although the rabbi told us to say dayenu for accepting more responsibility at work, I had to think, oy gevalt, I hope there aren't many other teachers around to hear this. I think that sometimes, we think, oh a student with autism can look me in the eye and answer questions the first time I ask them. Dayenu. But is it really good enough? Could we not teach the child to initiate conversation? Or we have the student working on listening quietly and sitting still in a large group setting. Dayenu. Or can we teach them how to interact with their peers appropriately? (I understand the aforementioned goal is at times a precursor to teaching interaction but just don't stop there.)
So the point to all this is push past dayenu with your students. Don't settle for good enough because you'll be surprised with what your students will give you.

Positivity

Yesterday was a really stressful day, due to personal issues, body aches, and some teachers perhaps moving further ahead of themselves regarding technology than they should have. But I'm not going to rehash those. One of the best things I did yesterday was make a cheat sheet for case managers to post on or near the computer to help the users remember short cuts or other key info. They weren't even mine to begin with--I just put them into a nice publisher doc and made them look cute and appealing. But I could carry that with me--and know that I helped a bunch of case managers and in turn, many many children and teachers.
So, what's the point of telling you this? Focus on the positive. We're three weeks (or more) into the school year. The honey moon is probably over and behaviors are starting to come out. But it's important to not get bogged down in all the problems and paperwork. One of the things I always used to say is that I have a lot of fun in my classroom because I get to celebrate all the small sucesses. (Celebrate does not always mean have a party--it can be high fives, a good note/phone call home or talking with my assistants, fyi) As a teacher of students with significant cognitive disabilities, we don't have to wait for test results to know that our students are progressing--we can see it every day!
So my thought, and my hope, for your Friday is that you look for the positives, for all the growth, for all the progress your children have made this week and this school year.