Over the Hump

Walked to class with a little swagger today and laughed at myself.

Was it the confidence I felt after being in this school for almost two months? Was it the confidence I felt as a teacher? (Hell if I can deal with this, call I can deal with anything.) Or was it the simple fact that I’m over the halfway point and I’m starting the steady downhill until summer? Or maybe it’s a fourth option, and it has to do with the fact that I have an interview in two weeks.

Regardless, I chuckled to myself as I walked to my classroom. I chuckled all the way until I remembered its STAR testing week beginning Monday and my students are mildly confident of their skills up until the equivalent of month two in their respective grades.

Today I found a handy website that had dittos in Math for both pre-algebra and algebra, and I’m now assigning them as homework. Not for a grade, but for the experience. Some of the kids couldn’t care less about the STAR test, and while I agree with their assessment, as a teacher of a struggling school, and as a teacher concerned for the future education of her children, I’m concerned about their low abilities. The cold hard facts: my 8th graders don’t know how to work with variables beyond guess and check, my 7th graders still struggle with mean, median, mode and division, and my 6th graders are confused by greatest common factors. And that’s just the math portion. My highest grade in the Earth Science quiz I gave was 13/25, the lowest was three.

On a high note, I just received my free samples of textbooks for my class. The nice folks at TCI also threw in samples for the rest of my school, and so far they have been well received. Too bad the teacher’s editions alone cost almost as much as a class set of math books. But never-the-less I love the smell and feel of new text book,s and I’m VERY hopeful that I’ll be able to get this school at least up the 21 century in one subject.

In addition, my little Monkeys have been acting unusually well trained. I’m learning a few things about classroom management and, for those looking to follow my footsteps in any regard, please take this little tidbit from my experience:

When implementing a new rule, stick by it. Day one is miserable, day two is worse, if possible, and roughly day three, maybe day four if they’re stubborn, they all fall into place. (It’s taken closer to seven weeks for my kids, but they are a special breed) For example: my kids are returning to class ahead of time… yeah you heard me right… they were all ahead of time and quite politely asking how much time they had left. It was miraculous. Now don’t fret if they back slide. That is of course inevitable with spring fever, spring break, sunshine, rain, wind, full moons, Mondays and whatever other random natural influences you can blame, however for every day you take a step forward that’s one step farther from where you began, and a back slide while frustrating, is still farther and farther from where you began.

Today’s postcard:
Gettysburg
1. It’s not in Arizona or New Mexico (Based on the trees and greenery in the picture. I’m concerned for the students that guessed that.)
2. It’s in Pennsylvania (I didn’t know that)
3. It involves the Civil War
4. It was not sent by my mystery pen pal in the Beale AFB vicinity.