(I will apologize now as this will probably be rather long- I tend to get carried away when telling stories haha)

I'm assisting again . Well, sort of. It's not the typical assistant job of regularly helping out with a lower level class like I did a year or two ago. Instead, for the past few years, my hip hop teacher has had me work with newer students in my class to catch them up on choreography before shows. It's a weird arrangement but it works for me and my teacher. Anyways, because my job is pretty much to get kids caught up in time for shows, my assistant work is really sporadic. However, we have a show at the end of the month so I get help out for all of October .

So, this past Friday was the first day of this. My teacher had told all the parents that I would be there 45 minutes early to work with new students or anyone else who wanted extra practice (my teacher has recently (*cough* finally) started enforcing the policy that if you don't know the routine, you don't do it in the show) during my teacher's other class in the room next to it- giving me complete control as "teacher" but she'd still be right there should a problem arise.

It's been awhile since I last did this so I was looking forward to it all week. So yeah, I was in a real good mood as I was walking in when I ran into one of the new girls' mom. This girl (I'll call her Emily) is about 10 years old and has been in the class since this past spring. Anyways, what her mom told me made my good mood even better.

She told me that Emily really looked up to me and that she was so excited to come in and practice with me. She also said that she didn't know if I'd noticed, but Emily has recently started wearing bandannas as headbands all the time and she's pretty sure it's because I always wear them to class.

Awww, it was just so sweet to hear her say that. I felt so special to know that I was a role model to this girl. This was two days ago and I'm still smiling about it. Have any of you guys ever had moments like this when you realized what a positive impact your job has on your students?

It just goes to show that it's so important to always have a smile on your face and always be a good role model at the dance studio and around town. The students really look up to their teachers!
Good job... you should be proud!