Highlights included the following:
(1) having the day's topic - "Multplying Fractions" - misspelled on the board for the ENTIRE lesson (look closely in the photo and you can see it)
(2) Hieu revealing the puzzle answer before anyone had answered it... whoops!
(3) Yanal saying - without a trace of irony - to one student: "Put that away. NOBODY texts in MY class!"
(4) Hieu apologizing to me at the end of class for speaking a tad harshly to one student. Again, with no irony, "I'm sorry Mr. Wadge but that guy can be really annoying.
(5) Hieu telling a very quiet ESL student: "you're a really smart guy, you know that?". The boy had a big grin on his face.
(6) best of all - Yanal pointing at a very unconfident math student and saying "you come up and do the next one on the board". I literally flinched. Anyway, Yanal and Hieu were great with him. Urged / helped him through the problem and then started a round of applause when he finished. The boy returns to his desk, turns to the kid behind him and exclaims loudly (I'm not making this up): "I was literally shaking up there. But when you actually do the work it's not the bad. That was pretty fun".
Way to go guys! Proud of you! You are both naturals! You connected with some of those kids better than I have all year (Honestly!!).
Hope you enjoyed it! Become teachers and we can hang out together on professional days!! :)