📝 The Class Historian: keeping track of the moments that make us a community
One of my favourite classroom jobs this year has been our class historian. It is a rotating role that changes roughly every two weeks.
The historian gets a notebook and one mission: write down the small, funny, unforgettable moments that happen in our class.
Now that we are past the middle of the school year, we looked back at some of the entries. A few highlights:
😄 “Today we watched a video with music and Mr. Carlos made us dance. He also asked questions and every time someone got one right he hid behind the TV and drew a smiley face on it.”
🩲 “A pair of shorts appeared in the lost and found box.”
🪨 “We needed a rock to create the Spanish Rock game, and Harrison pulled three rocks out of his pencil case…”
🧦 “Mr. Carlos had a hole in his sock after playing soccer with us at recess.”
🗣️ “Mr. Carlos used all the vocabulary words of the week in one sentence to explain how, in that class, we were definitely not going to earn a star.”
🎮 “Every five minutes Mr. Carlos asked if someone in our family played Fortnite. ‘Does your cousin play Fortnite?’ ‘Does your uncle play Fortnite?’”
🚪 “We were cleaning up the classroom quickly to go to recess and, without realising it, M** almost put T***** into the supply closet.”
🥒 “There was a character in a story called PEPINO, and every time his name appeared, Mr. Carlos shouted ‘PEPINO!!!’ or sometimes just randomly.”
Behind the laughter there is something powerful happening.
🧠 The historian is practising observation, listening, writing, perspective and voice.
🤝 The class is building a shared story of our year together.
Agency is not only about big projects. Sometimes it starts with handing a student a notebook and saying:
💬 “This is your job. You get to decide what is worth remembering.”
📚 Do you have a similar role in your classroom, or an idea for one?