The night after

I just realized that my last post says that it was posted on October 4, 2009. That is totally wrong, and I'm not really sure why that's the date it has. Unless my mind has entered into some type of pre-temporal time vortex landing me back over a month, I am confident that I wrote that post just last Sunday while I was preparing for my Sunday School lesson. Which I did. I've gotta keep these sanity checks online, who knows where I might find myself on a daily basis.

Yesterday I administered my second unit test in both my 6th and 7th grade classes. I hated it, because I knew that the majority of the students weren't prepared for the test. But I did know that the students who have been following along, doing their homework, and not screwing around in the classroom were going to be ready. Plus, I'm about 1.5-2 weeks behind on my long term plan, and I can't afford to waste any more time. So it was time to move on, and I had to give the test anyhow.

It's a weird thing, as a teacher, the things that you get excited about. For instance, when I'm walking through the halls and I see a pencil on the floor, I get excited, because well, hey, free pencil! Or a new ream of paper for the copy machine - when Chris walks in carrying that new package of paper at 7:30 am after I've been nervously waiting for it since I arrived at the school at 6:45, it's like Christmas day has finally arrived. And on the line of strange things you get excited about, one is assessment data, like tests and quizzes - for it's a chance to really see how well your students grasped what you've been pouring your soul into for the last better part of your life. So I excitedly rushed into my little apartment last night, excited to see how my students did on a test, that I unfortunately knew beforehand that they didn't do well on - my excitement stemming from the fact that maybe in this steaming pile of failure there will be a diamond or two of success. I haven't finished grading the 7th grade tests yet, but I can say with certainty that in the 6th grade, there were more than two. In fact, to be exact, there were 5. 5 out of 34 students who did amazingly awesome on the exam.

My hopes were particularly set with one of my students, DJ, who pulled me aside during the exam and whispered to me "I think I aced this." My heart lept for joy, in the fact that I KNOW DJ is totally capable of doing so, for he is brilliant, but immediately sank as I recalled he had told me the same thing with the last exam. And it's not that he did horribly last time, because he did get one of the better scores in the class. But unfortunately, with how low my scores were last time, it wasn't hard.

Well, last night at 2:45 am as I was wrapping up grading the 6th grade exams, I about broke down in tears as I pulled out DJ's test, and graded it, cruising from answer to answer. DJ's intuition was right on this time, as he scored the class high of 51/53 - 96%. These students have the capacity to be brilliant, I just need to figure out how to get them to tap it.

But on the other end of the scale, these students blow my mind - in a number of ways. Allow me to title them, and then I'll expound.

1. We had homework?

2. What's this pencil you speak of?

3. Does this test count towards my grade?

1. With education, it's essential to establish routines so that your students know at any given time what is expected of them. My question is, how long does it take for a routine to be established? I'm hoping it's longer than 13 weeks, because that's how long I've been doing THE EXACT SAME THING EVERY DAY IN CLASS and my students are still like - "We had homework?"

YES! Every day for the last 13 weeks, with a few exceptions, YOU HAVE HOMEWORK! And what do I expect you to do with it? Well if you were to guess according to their actions, it would be leave it in the bottom of my backpack, throw it on the floor, put it on the overhead, put it on Mr. Woahn's desk, or essentially anywhere except for the BASKET THAT HAS YOUR PERIOD'S HOMEWORK LABELED ON IT! That just wouldn't make sense.

Or in addition to this, my next favorite response is, as I walk around collecting homework from EVERY PERSON AROUND YOU, to hear a student say "You didn't give it to me." Well, buck-o, somehow every person who was sitting around you yesterday in class got the homework, and if I had to postulate based on the evidence, I'd be willing to wager that you did, and it got left in the same place where you put your reminder to do math homework last night.

2. So if 13 weeks isn't long enough to establish routines, you'd think that 5-6 YEARS of going to school might be? WRONG! Let me share a little epiphany that my students seem to rediscover on a daily basis. Come over here, so I can whisper this into your ear... So, did you know that when you get to class, you need a pencil? Yeah, incredible isn't it?! It will change your life! I'd think that after 5-6 years of school, this is something that you might realize by now, but evidently, it's still an evasive secret. Or at least it is to a number of students, who, on a daily basis I can guarantee with a higher certainty of success than I could predict the sunrise, which students will DAILY tell me that they need a pencil.

For the first two weeks of school, I just gave them pencils. You've never seen 400 pencils disappear so quickly. Then I started trading them whatever they had in their pockets for pencils - gum, rubber bands, toys, cell phones, keys, wallets. However, as is evidenced by the drawer full of miscellaneous items, the only thing that happens from trading is that I get a drawer full of random student possessions. So I started selling pencils to them. 5 cents, or whatever coin they have in their pocket. And I don't give change back.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about the pencils, besides the fact that it's only been 6 years, which evidently isn't enough time to ingrain the thought that EVERY DAY IN CLASS YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A PENCIL, is that when they don't have a pencil, many of the students think they're punishing me by saying "Well then, I'm not doing anything today." At this same time, they could ask their neighbor, who likely has 100 pencils in their backpack. Or at least I'd think they would, because seriously - where in the world are all of these pencils disappearing to?

Next week, I'm starting a classroom incentive to start bringing pencils to class. It's going to be part of a larger classroom management system that I'm putting into effect, but essentially one of the way these guys can earn points is by everyone bringing a pencil to class, or at the very least not asking ME for a pencil.

3. And last of this posting rant, is "Does this test count towards my grade?" Yes, I literally had about 15 students ask me that yesterday. Does this test count? Well, let's consider the following:

After the last test, we spent an entire day talking about your score, examining the questions that you missed, and setting goals about what you were going to do to score better on the next test. Every day for the last 7 weeks, I've been telling you that the questions on the Quiz are going to be JUST LIKE the ones on the test, the important one where I can determine how well you understood the material. That EVERY DAY for the last 7 days, I've been talking about how we have a test this Friday, and that if you have questions about any of the homework, to come talk to me so we can get you ready for the test. Or how about the fact that we spent the ENTIRE last two days just reviewing for the test? Or the fact that every day on the Do Now for the last week, I've been talking about how this test has the potential to bring your grade up if you do well? That not studying, or worse, not taking the test, will seriously bring your grade down?

Do any of these suggest that the test might count towards your grade? Oh, not explicit enough? Ok, well, yeah, it counts. Good luck!

Seriously though, I love these kids. So much, that it kills me to grade these tests. It seriously puts my own ability to teach in question here, and if it weren't for the fact that I had a few students who totally rocked the test, I'd feel like a complete failure.

I just need to take into account the successes that I have had - the few inside of the classroom, but additionally the ones outside of it. I had one of my students run up to me after school the other day and genuinely give me a hug after her basketball game. I had another student come talk with me last night after school for an hour, just because. I had another student walk up to me randomly between periods while I was waiting for my next class to arrive, and randomly challenge me to a thumb war. These victories, one by one, are how this battle is going to eventually be won. And I will win - there is no other option.