I'm officially over 1/5th of the way through my first school year as a real teacher.
Wow.
October is supposed to be the hardest month for first year teachers.
I'm hanging in there.
Behavioral issues are either going away entirely or getting magnified. At the beginning of the year, there were about eight students in my last period class who never stopped talking and/or talking back. Now, I'm down to two students who are off-task... but these students' behaviors are worse than they were at the beginning of the year. (On second thought, no, their behavior is not worse; it's just more visible now that fewer students are talking.) On the plus side, I've also gotten some (unprompted!) apology notes from students who realized that their behavior was preventing them from getting good grades. About ten of my previously underperforming students have really stepped up in the past week and are putting in ten times the amount of effort that they were in the first unit.
I'm so proud of my kids.
Yes, scores are low. Yes, some of my kids don't know how to multiply. However, every kid in my class wants to be in school. They don't storm out of class. They get upset when I send them to another teacher's room to complete a think sheet.
They're learning. I'm learning, too. I'll be honest: I wanted to cry and hit my head against a wall after grading the one-step equations quiz. It's just not that hard. The mean was around a 55-60% in four of my classes. I thought about reteaching one-step equations but decided to remediate as I taught two-step equations. I knew that if I taught two-step equations well and if my students paid attention, one-step equations would come naturally. The scores on the two-step equations quiz were higher in every class except for my honors class. I bet all of my classes will hit 80% mastery of one-step equations on the unit exam and maybe 80% mastery of two-step equations.
Did I mention that I'm proud of my kids? They're really, really putting in effort. Some of my kids are giving impromptu lectures to other students in class about how it's distracting when others whisper and why other students should turn in their homework.
A lot of my students are struggling, but I see them working independently now. The students who whispered and doodled during the first and second units are asking questions. They're raising their hands. They're asking to solve problems on the board.
Some days, it's hard to remember this. My students aren't perfect. I'm definitely not perfect. (I'm a first year teacher! I'm might be TFA Model 2.0 with my 3 years of TAing, but I've never been responsible for entire classes by myself!)
We're taking small steps every week. Nothing drastic. But a few small steps every day for 180 days? That's a lot of small steps.
Wow.
October is supposed to be the hardest month for first year teachers.
I'm hanging in there.
Behavioral issues are either going away entirely or getting magnified. At the beginning of the year, there were about eight students in my last period class who never stopped talking and/or talking back. Now, I'm down to two students who are off-task... but these students' behaviors are worse than they were at the beginning of the year. (On second thought, no, their behavior is not worse; it's just more visible now that fewer students are talking.) On the plus side, I've also gotten some (unprompted!) apology notes from students who realized that their behavior was preventing them from getting good grades. About ten of my previously underperforming students have really stepped up in the past week and are putting in ten times the amount of effort that they were in the first unit.
I'm so proud of my kids.
Yes, scores are low. Yes, some of my kids don't know how to multiply. However, every kid in my class wants to be in school. They don't storm out of class. They get upset when I send them to another teacher's room to complete a think sheet.
They're learning. I'm learning, too. I'll be honest: I wanted to cry and hit my head against a wall after grading the one-step equations quiz. It's just not that hard. The mean was around a 55-60% in four of my classes. I thought about reteaching one-step equations but decided to remediate as I taught two-step equations. I knew that if I taught two-step equations well and if my students paid attention, one-step equations would come naturally. The scores on the two-step equations quiz were higher in every class except for my honors class. I bet all of my classes will hit 80% mastery of one-step equations on the unit exam and maybe 80% mastery of two-step equations.
Did I mention that I'm proud of my kids? They're really, really putting in effort. Some of my kids are giving impromptu lectures to other students in class about how it's distracting when others whisper and why other students should turn in their homework.
A lot of my students are struggling, but I see them working independently now. The students who whispered and doodled during the first and second units are asking questions. They're raising their hands. They're asking to solve problems on the board.
Some days, it's hard to remember this. My students aren't perfect. I'm definitely not perfect. (I'm a first year teacher! I'm might be TFA Model 2.0 with my 3 years of TAing, but I've never been responsible for entire classes by myself!)
We're taking small steps every week. Nothing drastic. But a few small steps every day for 180 days? That's a lot of small steps.
