What a difference a small class size made one day in one elementary school

I had 12 of my 30 kids in school today. They are 5 and 6 years old. Today, I got a glimpse of the "good old days" when special funding capped classes at 15.

My heart rate stayed the same all day long. The students were focused and excited to learn and do work. The volume of the room was chill and quiet, and our call-and-response attention-getters took only a few seconds.

Two of my most difficult students were present and didn't act out. Instead, they were smiley and loving and caring about those around them, and they kept saying how much they loved school.

The paraprofessional who works in my classroom and I were able to do detailed handwriting work with the students and encourage each one to use sound-spelling (using knowledge of speech sounds to independently write an unfamiliar word).

We were able to read books to our kids at playtime and during quiet reading time.

I decided to have lunch in the classroom for an indoor "snowy day picnic," and every single student got to tell me about their day or their pet or their grandma or their pregnant mommy or their cousin with the same name as their best friend in class.

I got to look every student in the eye as they talked to me and show them through my focused attention how much they mattered and are loved.

We had extra time for every academic block because every transition took a third of the time it usually takes. The students noticed the soothing music that was playing and how much it calmed them, as though they were hearing it for the first time, even though I play it every day.

And at the end of the day, when one of them finished an exercise on the board and everyone said "Bravo, you did it!" he replied:

"No I didn't, we did it together! We worked as a team, all of us, and figured it out all together!"

I had to laugh so I wouldn't cry.

It was such a beautiful day. I was in a great mood all day because of how special it was.

And then it hit me: This is how it could be every day for each of these kids. And I thought about how the next day, we would go back to same, stressful, 30-kids-clamoring-for-attention noise.

And my heart sank.

This is about funding, yes, and politics, but it's also about our future standing in the world.

I need to see 15-student classes in my lifetime — in urban public schools.

Rebecca Segal is a kindergarten teacher for Milwaukee Public Schools. She lives in Milwaukee. This column first appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.