I have a handwritten list of posts I want to write, things that are important.  There is one that has been screaming at me for a long time, with yellow highlighter and a post-it note: “The Hundred Little Things.”  It is the source of all that’s important, why everything we do is meaningful, whether we know it or not.  It is the most important thing I learned in teaching.  Oh boy, did I learn this.

A past parent visited me at school this week.  Her boys are beyond college and doing well.  She wanted to stop by, give me a Peter Rabbit cookie jar, and say thank you.  Like the student alumni who stop by and cannot pinpoint what it is they remember, she was the same way.  And I know why.  It’s the hundred little things.

Do I remember everything I did with Adam?  No.  Does his Mom?  No. …