There’s one semester left for school this year.
One period of students took a final today and one kid asked what it could be on since we hadn’t learned anything this year. Many thoughts ran through my head, from sarcastic to mean to realistic. Instead of being mean to one student, I just told them that they had a couple of hoops to jump through–an essential question that wrapped up a recent reading, and a benchmark test that our district likes to see happen for data collection, among other things.
I felt bad for a while because I’m sure I did have students who didn’t learn anything in my class. But, as we all know, learning comes in so many forms. And, what comes out of the mouths of 15-yr-olds shouldn’t bother me. I’ve learned, over the years, that I am not the center of the universe for certain students and that everything isn’t about me. I mean, students have taken the time to tell me this years after I had them in class.
Based on semester one, my goals are a little different for semester two.
–make seniors suffer with tons of work. You know, like prepare them for college, and stuff.
–make sophomore honors sophomore honors. You know, like challenge them for taking a class with the word honors in it.
–be nice, patient, humble. Nod and smile. Remember that I have it pretty good.
–expose them to something new every day. Maybe then they’ll LEARN SOMETHING. Alright, so maybe that comment does bother me. A little.
–teach them.
When I used to go on job interviews, one of the lines I would say to a principal, or whoever interviewed me, was that I believed any kid who showed up to school was there to learn. I would never use that line now.
I now believe that any kid who shows up to school should be exposed to everything and that it’s up to him or her to do something with it. Olive branches should be in short supply.
Here’s the best thing that happened first semester. I had a girl who was thrown into one of my classes by her counselor. She has not done well since day one, and started behind all the others because the counselor put her in my class that had lengthy summer reading that she didn’t even know about until maybe a day before school when I emailed her because I saw her on my roll sheet.
This girl failed. She did most of the assignments, and still failed. She got behind and never recovered. She even resorted to downloading a short piece from the Internet and turned it in as her own. But yesterday, after class, she came up to my desk and asked if she could do something extra during the second semester to make up for the first, asking for at least a C. Yes! You’re never overmatched if you hang in there and keep trying.
Guess I have a new lunch buddy.https://youtu.be/0prgP6watdo