Tracking

One of the ways I motivate my students is with this giant wall tracking chart. At the beginning of the year each of my classes chose a class name, and then students submitted illustrations. The best ones (chosen by class voting) went up on the wall.

Once the classes had a name, competition naturally ensued. For each unit, objectives are posted on the wall, and class results are recorded. Blue means "We met our goal", Green means "We are close to our goal", and Red means "We kinda sucked it up on that one." Okay, really Red means "We are far from our goal".

Things have really been heating up lately, because the classes are all really close. I add fuel to the fire on quiz days by saying helpful things like "First period doesn't think you can catch them today. Actually, they said there is no way you catch them ever. Are you gonna let them get away with that?"

Originally I had to make up all the goading statements, but now my students are really getting into it. One of my classes is the Bananas, (thank God they don't sing that Bananas song "Go bananas, B A N A N A S"...I would have to leave.) and third period rolls in an JM goes "MISTER! Tell 2nd period I eat bananas for breakfast!"

The Laziness Aroma

I love tracking.

There I said it. Sometimes people look at me slightly askance when I talk about my myriad tracking systems, which range from the huge wall chart that takes up the entire south wall of my class, to individual student tracking for objectives, Critical Thinking Problems, and Mad Minutes, my own tracking of objectives and CTAs, and most recently, surveys.

Tracking is so great! I mean, I can open up my 12 mb Excel file and tell you exactly who did not understand how to solve percent problems when the problem was arranged such that we were finding the "whole" as opposed to the "part" or the "percent". I get pretty geeked about it. And actually, the "slightly askance" is more like the look at me like I need to be committed.

But this is not a post about tracking. This is a post about the survey.

I give a survey out at least once a marking period (9 weeks) because I want to give my kids a forum for voicing any needs that I am not meeting, and I also want to measure some more vague, non-academic things. I want to know if my kids think math is more or less important after 15 weeks in my tutelage. I want to know if they can tell that I care about their success. I want to know if they are willing to take risks. I want to know if they think they are working hard.

With the data in, I can tell you conclusively that students like my class a great deal more than they did at the end of the first marking period. There was an increase from 57% approval rating to a brisk 66%. On the downside, the "How much do I care about your success?" question dropped from 79% to 76%. And actually, all the rest of the categories saw a decline or no-change. So there was only the one bright-spot.

Well, almost.

One of my students in third period wrote that "What she likes most about this class" was "the laziness aroma."

Now I don't know what this is, but I am fairly confident that this student is not on drugs. That is the first consideration. Since no other students mentioned this aroma, I am guessing that she might have an over-active olfactory sense. Or not.

Any ideas?

More TFA Stuff

A brief preface:

A week or two ago I yammered about data. It was exceedingly boring, and after reading it over before posting it, knew that it did not convey what I wanted it to convey. It was sloppy. This will hopefully be a bit more streamlined. No promises.

The real thing:

On Friday I had my Round 2 debrief. For those scoring at home, this was my third one-on-one discussion with my program director. Round 0 occurred before school began, Round 1 went down in September, and now Round 2.

For the actual observation, my PD sat in on about 30 minutes of class and recorded the whole ordeal. The Round 2 was a discussion on what she saw.

When I show up, I'm exhausted. I have gradually become sicker and sicker as the day wore on; so much so that by fourth period I barely left my seat. I arrived unprepared; I left the two items that I was supposed to bring at school in a cold, headache, exhaustion infused-haze.

Brooke starts out with the normal kind of stuff. Brooke's my PD.
Oh you are working really hard.
I can tell you are planning.
I was surprised at your self-grading, I think you are higher than this.

You know, buttering me up so that she can lay on the hard stuff.
And lay she does. She shows me the following cycle, saying "This is what I observed in your classroom. You are the expert there, but going from what you wrote in your reflection and the things I saw, I think it is fairly accurate."

The Cycle:

Looking at the cycle, I was faced with thoughts I had been avoiding since Thanksgiving; I think that I am failing my 7th grade students. I feel like I have tried everything I can think of to try to get my students to be engaged and learn the things that I *know* they can learn. So yea, there is definitely some low teacher motivation in regards to trying to get my students to succeed; everything I have tried hasn't worked! And, when I have asked other teachers at my school about it, they basically answer with "You should have lower expectations."

I wanted to cry. I almost did. I feel overwhelmed by my desire to succeed and the apparent futility of that desire. And the futility is purely born from my student's nonchalance! It is *not* that they cannot learn the material. It *is* that they choose to stare at the wall instead of watch how to do the things they are supposed to know how to do.

But, somehow, the conversations shifted to have a positive ending.

First, I took a walk. For five minutes.

When I returned, we talked about things that contribute towards the depression I feel every time I see/taste/touch/hear/smell or think about my big goal (80% mastery of all grade objectives). We talked about how this number is only that, a number. It is *not* a big goal.

A big goal must inspire. It must be a vision. And for me, 80% is not a vision. It is a big bold red line that I am woefully short of.

So I am going to form a new big goal. One that moves me. Because once I am moved, I can move my students (in theory).

I am also going to look into dealing with my frustration. I get extremely frustrated when my students ask questions saying "I don't get it", when I have seen them asleep at their desks or goofing off. So I am going to read a book that I think will help deal with these situations in a more productive manner.

I guess the point of all this is to say that teaching is really difficult. I am struggling constantly, and feel like a failure a large amount of the time. But the reality is that I am capable of improving and I am capable of reaching my kids (I AM THE INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER OF MY CLASSROOM!), and that will only happen if I am willing to *try* to improve.

I pray that in whatever situation we find ourselves, we would remember these moments, when we have tried and failed. I pray that we would have strength in these moments. And I pray that we might persevere, be picked up (through the help of our friends and God), and end up succeeding.