Snapshot of HOPE and CHANGE

Snapshot of HOPE and CHANGE

After four weeks, I feel that it might be appropriate to give you a snapshot of my classroom, and the students who I have fallen in love with for their strengths and challenges.

When people have been asking me what it is like to be a teacher, I have been responding that I am not yet a teacher. I am more of a “manager.” I think this is the case for most new teachers. In order for students to truly be able to learn, a classroom has to be under control. Learning cannot happen without active engagement and limited disruptions. This has been the most trying part of this experience. It has been hard to find the appropriate way to show my students the balance between how much I love and care for them and how much I won’t compromise because they need to learn to challenge themselves. Sometimes, I think the latter creates a mindset of  “why are you picking on me,” “why are you so mean to me.”

I have seen this in one of my students. She is brilliant (all my students are), yet she doesn’t always have the work ethic she is going to need later in life to truly succeed at the level she deserves. She also buckles under peer pressure and often wants to be seen as “cool” instead of “smart.” The hard thing has been convincing her that “cool” is “smart.” I think I probably push her harder than anyone in the class. We often have 1-1 conversations about where she is performing, and where my expectations are. It is helpful that she knows how smart she is, so she knows that her expectations for herself should be higher. Also, I think she understands that I know she is smart and that I believe in her, but sometimes that is not enough. I am struggling to find ways to truly excite in her the joy of learning. The other day she told me, “Ms. Clayton, you always get so excited, its embarrassing.” Now, I don’t think she completely meant this, but to me it showed that she doesn’t see the complete joy in education, yet. Then—after one of our talks, I noticed she was more actively participating in class, so I wrote her a little note “You’re participating! YAY! Can you tell I’m excited J.” She proceeded to show that note to all of her teachers that day. I take that as a sign that she is beginning to understand what is at stake, and with recognition she is starting to raise her own expectations.

I have one student who embraces education and learning. She is truly incredible, reading at a 6^th-7^th grade level and performing extremely high in math. She constantly challenges herself, for example I asked the students to use our spelling words to make sentences and she asked if she could write a poem! Yet, she is extremely soft spoken. From Day One, I realized that she didn’t have the confidence to stand up and speak up in class. So, during the first week I wrote her a note, complimenting her on her hard work in class and telling her that she has a lot to be really proud of so she shouldn’t be afraid to speak up LOUD and PROUD in class. Last week in class, we were learning chants to “roll our multiplication” numbers. We asked for student volunteers to come and lead the class in the chant. I was beaming when I saw her hand shoot up, and she came to the front of the room and shouted “CLASS,” “DUKES UP!” “CARVER RAMS GOOD AS GOLD LET ME SEE YOUR FINGERS ROLL.” I am not sure if she noticed just how excited I was to see her confidence sky rocket, but she has been noticeably more outspoken in class ever since.

The last thing that I want to touch on, for this post at least, is my student that I referred to as Timon previously. He is our lowest performing student in literacy, at the beginning of the summer he was reading at about a second grade level. But, he is one of the highest performing students in math, usually getting to start his homework early in math because he finishes his work so far ahead of the rest of the class. I had often wondered about the disconnect between the two subjects. Wednesday of last week I gave a sort of “pre-test” to the spelling test the students have on Fridays. I created sentences and they filled in the blank with the word, pretty standard procedure. I graded their work and handed it back, asking them to work on the words that they had missed. Timon hadn’t done horribly on the assignment, but he did have a few words he needed to work on. As I was giving the test on Friday, I chose to use the same sentences so the kids would understand the context. I was probably on about the third sentence and was walking around the room. As I passed by Timon’s desk, I noticed that he was all the way down on the 10^th word. I looked around the area, thinking perhaps he was looking at a sheet of paper or something—but then realized that he was doing it all from memory. He has the most incredibly photographic memory that I have ever watched in action. I was absolutely amazed, and really I still am. It also seriously helped to explain the disconnect between reading and math comprehension. A photographic memory like that is extremely helpful when thinking about steps and formulas for math, but doesn’t really help when you are trying to pull out key points from an entire story.

As you can see, I have some pretty stellar students. Like every human they have challenges, but they also have pretty incredible ways of overcoming them. I learn more from them everyday than they probably realize, and I am so blessed to teach the kids in Room 17.