2.Jacquelyn Moran — Direct/Cross

JACQUELYN MORAN: Jacquelyn Moran, M-O-R-A-N.

JACQUELYN MORAN: J-A-C-Q-U-E-L-Y-N.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Good morning.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I work at Saxe Gotha Elementary School. I'm currently a kindergarten teacher. This is my first year in kindergarten. I've been there for seven years. And before I was in kindergarten, I taught first grade.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I attended the University of South Carolina and got a degree in early childhood education. I did my internship at Saxe Gotha Elementary and couldn't leave.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Eli was in my first grade class in 2013.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Eli was all boy. He was sweet. He loved superheros. But what I remember about Eli was he was everybody's friend. Everyone loved to be friends with Eli. He was the kid that would play with anyone who needed someone to play with. I'm sorry. He was curious. He loved to learn. He loved school because he loved to learn. He was my little buddy.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. Eli and I were very, very close. That was my second year of teaching and I became very close with him. He would gravitate to the front of the carpet. He was smaller, so he, at the beginning of the year, was at the front of the carpet so he could see. But as the year progressed, he wanted to stay. Oftentimes, when I would teach at the front, he'd be right in front of me. He was one of the kids that would want to sit with me at lunch. He was special.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am, I was. And I did, you know, take on part of that role for him. You know, morning hugs and we ate breakfast together a lot.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Okay.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am. And he is in the front row right there in the green shirt. And that was me a couple of years ago.

JACQUELYN MORAN: That would have been his yearbook photo. They would come and take pictures in the fall. That actually would have been taken before the class picture.

JACQUELYN MORAN: They were my babies. I took a lot of pictures.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This was a day when we had careers come and this was a firefighter, a real life hero, who came to visit the classroom. Let me see if I can use this. This is Eli right here right at the front. You can see, you know, where he's sitting. This is usually the spot he chose because I would be at the front teaching at the board. So watching all of that, real firefighter.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Not at all. Not at all.

JACQUELYN MORAN: We had an initiative at school, Esteem, and it was incorporating engineering and mathematics. And we had a robotics team come into the classroom just to give that experience to kids. And he's right here. I don't know if you can zoom into his face, but he is in awe of that robot. It would have been like remote controlled. Yeah.

JACQUELYN MORAN: One thing that we do at school is a time where they don't just read to themselves, they read, you know, with a friend. So you can see in this picture -- and he's right here in this green shirt. He's reading with a buddy during read to partner time. I like the way that he's like pointing to the words and trying to show his friend, trying to help. That's what he did. He was a friend. He would try to help anyone who needed it.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Everyone loved Eli. He was a popular selection. At reading time when they would pick a buddy, he usually was in charge of the shadow tag game that they would play. That was the year that they loved to play tag, but, you know, at school, you don't touch. So they would play shadow tag and he was definitely a ring leader in that. He actually was a really good artist and one of the things that he did as a friend is he would try to teach other people how to draw like him. All right. Well, there he is. That's his -- that's his classic -- that's a classic Eli grin. That's usually -- when you were teaching, that's usually what you were getting. That was the sweet smile. That's the one I remember. And this would have been a buddy time. On that table, that's a leadership notebook. And we had what was called leadership buddies. Y'all have heard about the leadership notebooks some. And their buddies would come and help them with their leadership notebook because they were barely reading, barely writing. They would come and help them learn how to present them to people or add things to their folder. And he actually -- I always had to correct him. He would call his leadership buddy his big brother.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. Yeah. He was stuck on that. He would tell me, No, that's my big brother.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This is him right here. This was a group project we actually did with another class. A fifth grade class came down and they were doing like an animal research project. And they were turning it into like an IMovie, learning about technology and how to use Ipads. And they each had a group and they had a group of fifth graders that were helping them learn how to do that. We did a lot of group work with classes outside of my class. People that were -- or kids that were older or kids that had skills they didn't have. Our school is a whole community.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes. This was either Red Ribbon week or Dr. Suess week. Those weeks, we always do a crazy sock day. So this would have been a crazy sock day. And this is a classic teacher picture for crazy sock day when they all put their feet in. He's right there on the corner.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This is the exact same moment, but I went to the other side of the room because you couldn't see all of their faces. So he's actually down here in this corner smiling back at the camera with his crazy socks. At the front of the room.

JACQUELYN MORAN: A moment ago when I talked about group work, this is also that same project they were working on. I like to document their lives and what they do and send it -- send it home so everyone knows what we're working on. You can see him right here. He's diligently working on whatever part was his.

JACQUELYN MORAN: He's up here in the corner. I really don't remember what they're doing in that picture, but they're definitely working together on something.

JACQUELYN MORAN: When I talk about him being curious, this is what I'm talking about. He just wanted to know stuff. Those are lima beans. This is another classic teacher thing. If you soak them long enough and you pop them open, you can see the sprouts on the inside and you can -- you can see him here investigating with his magnifying glass the inside of those lima beans.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes -- yes, ma'am. These are all my classroom. He's laying on the floor and who's know what they're working on. Oh, it was probably the same day. One thing we teach in first grade is about measurement. And they had cut out an item that was the same size as their foot and we were talking about how small foots take more and big foots take less. And there he is measuring the length of the room.

JACQUELYN MORAN: By his foot. And he had -- he would have had a small foot. So his foot would have probably been half of the kid next to him.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I believe that back here -- he loved superheros. It's hard to remember back that far, but, likely, this was his book bag at the time. He loved Spiderman. He loved Batman. Yeah.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I talked to you about read to partner time, but it doesn't always work out perfectly because we have odd numbers. So this would have been a lot of groups of two. And there's a picture, it's very hard to see, but he's over here. And this is actually a group of three. And he was everyone's friend. Eli would have been the person that if there was a kid left out, he would have said hey, come read with us. He didn't want anyone to feel left out. He included all. So down here, you can see he's reading with two other kids as a group of three.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Oh, he would always volunteer. He was everyone's friend, so he could get along no matter what with who it was.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am. This is our writing notebook that they keep at school that we do during writing time. This was his writing notebook the year I had him as a first grader.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am. This is his handwriting.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Would you like for me to read what's here or you going to put it up?

JACQUELYN MORAN: We, you know, teach during writing time different components, informational stories. I see the top of this page is "All About". And that is a unit we do in first grade, we do All About. So I would teach them a lesson on whatever our topic was and then they would have some private reflection time that they would take their idea I gave them and go write. So he would have taken an All About lesson that I modeled and then gone back to his writing time and done this. They do this independently.

JACQUELYN MORAN: At the top, it says, All About My Brother. And there's a little boy saying, Can I have it? And the other one says, Yes. And at the bottom, it says: I love Tahn because he gives me things to play with and he gives stuff that I want. God, thank you for making my brother -- or thank you for my brother. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You did a wonderful job making my brother. I love God.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, thank you.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Okay. The leadership notebook is something that every student has at our school. And we really try to include things in there that are personal to them, celebrations that they had, goals that they're trying to achieve. It's something that they do that is them. They have what they want to be. How they feel about, you know, certain aspects of school. I mean, we keep a lot of data in them so that they can go back and reflect on how much they've grown through the year.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This is one of Eli's superheros that he would have wanted to have taught other kids. That's his mission statement. So their mission statement is something they come up with of what they want to be. And he says, I will do my best all the time. They have goals that they would set for themselves, the things that they wanted to work on. He wanted to work on tally marks.

JACQUELYN MORAN: In math class, it's the ones where you have sticks of five with the cross over. And that's the first grade standard. His personal goal was, I work on my homework. These were different -- we would sit in a circle often and do what's called a seminar, where they kind of talk to each other about something that we've discussed. So that's all data on things like that.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Okay. So they have to sign up for jobs they think they would be good at, and I make them tell me why. And then I select each week who's going to do what. He's got that he was the line leader, so that's the coveted position. They all want to be first. The door holder, holding the door when we got out. The caboose, which would have been the last person at the end of the line. The messenger, the teacher's assistant. We've got room inspector, the class blogger, which would have kept track of everything we did that day.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes. If it is colored and the date's beside it, that's the week that he got to do it.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Water counter. That was another favorite. This was his favorite. I am the line leader because I do hip and lip everyday, and there he is doing hip and lip.

JACQUELYN MORAN: That's this. This is how the kindergarten and first graders walk down the hallway.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This would have been -- Ms. Ricard signed this for engaging respectfully. And it was in March of 2013. He would have gotten that at a lead rally. Being recognized for doing something that was respectful. This is given at the end of his kindergarten year. This is his kindergarten award. He got the Mr. Goodbar award for always being a friend. And then this one is -- I gave him this one at the end of the year. This would have been the last week of school. And it was the M&M award for being marvelous and mighty.

JACQUELYN MORAN: That's Eli's writing, yes. My favorite game is a DS because it is fun. It's got my favorite book is Batman because it is cool. I am cute and super because I am working hard. I'm fast because I run fast.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Uh-huh. This would have been like, you know, the beginning of the school year trying to understand, you know, who you are, get to know each other. That would have been him as a baby.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes. And I actually remember him sharing that with me.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. We had a share time at the end of the day, that's one of the things he shared. Because I remember the string, it was so interesting.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. It says, God is happy. Oh, I've got them out of order. Okay. Page 1. I like the Lord because he is not mean. He is sweet. He is almighty. The Maker. Page 2 says, He made the moon after the earth. He made the sun after the moon. Do you love God?

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, ma'am.

JACQUELYN MORAN: All right. Well, there's his little picture. He was a great artist. Obviously, he loved his field day. Okay. It says, I like to play in my box. I like to read in school all day. I like to learn the seven habits, which is part of our leader in me. I like to learn the seven habits all day. The butterfly lands on my finger at school and it loves me. I like PE and I like my teacher. The end.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes. We did that at the end of the year together just to help them remember their whole year. So if you go through it, it will just have different things like what his first grade favorites are, who he liked to eat lunch with, what he liked to eat, all about his school.

JACQUELYN MORAN: My favorite lunch in first grade is pizza. And then he's got his little lunch buddies down here. It's his little group of friends, Noah and Conner and Sebastian. And you can see his cute little --

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. He was so great at drawing.

JACQUELYN MORAN: He did. They're all holding pizza and looking happy.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Well, there we are. We're holding hands.

JACQUELYN MORAN: My first grade teacher's name is Ms. Moran. One thing I'll never forget about Ms. Moran -- I'm sorry -- is she's the best teacher ever. I wish I had Ms. Moran to teach next year. My teacher made me smile by the door when we would be shaking hands.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah. I greet my students at the door.

JACQUELYN MORAN: He did. Can I read it?

JACQUELYN MORAN: Okay. It says, My favorite subject is health because we can be a doctor and we can fix people.

JACQUELYN MORAN: That's in my classroom. The kids who he said he liked to eat lunch with in his book are actually the kids in this picture. This is him on the end. That was -- I see parents in the room, flowers in the background, I'm guessing that was about the last day of school probably. That was probably the day of our celebration.

JACQUELYN MORAN: This is something that I struggle with, I struggle daily. I see his friends. It's hard. Some days are easier, but he's always there. It's hard for me to put into words.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yes, sir.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I recall him coming to like a family night, but I don't remember the others.

JACQUELYN MORAN: There was a night that he came by himself with his dad. I do remember him saying he was excited because he felt like it was very special to have that special time with just him.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I'm sure.

JACQUELYN MORAN: I believe he said something like that, that he got to eat with him by himself.

JACQUELYN MORAN: Yeah.