Friday Haiku

Who Are You?

Today was the first meeting of the entire faculty at the new school. If you’re new to this blog, here’s an update: I’m moving to a new school, and I found out today (contrary to that linked post) that I have TWO windows. I didn’t turn on my lights once today, and it was by far the best day I’ve had in a school thus far into my career. Not because there weren’t any kids around, but because I could use natural light to utilize the environs. It’s a beautiful thing.

At this first meeting the principal handed us a sheet to fill out. This before launching into a Q&A about the changes we’d like to make in ourselves as teachers; the changes we’d like to enliven within the students; the changes we’d like to make in education in our city and state. And while I principal might not have addressed his goals as directly as he could have, I know that these goals are in the back of each teacher’s mind: What are we going to do to open a new school?

We shared a few things, and I shared my own with the group. But before I turn in the questionnaire to the principal, I’d like to share them here. What follows are the questions on that sheet of paper, along with my answers.

I am a young-ish man; still new to teaching. I teach 8th grade Language Arts. I am a husband, a father, and I feel that I am still a child and thus still able to connect to the kids. I am a reader. I am a thinker. I am a camper. I am a cook. I try to be that ‘renaissance man’ in every way I can, and so I am an artist, a scientist, a lawyer, a mathematician, kook, and thief. I am malleable, and am willing to take on any challenge teaching brings.

What do you stand for and believe in?

Sadly my political views are cinched off by the morals of teaching. Should I teach or inform about certain topics, I’d come under fire. And so I teach around those beliefs. I do honestly believe that every student can and will learn. I honestly believe that our current education system dumbs things down for the kids. I honestly believe that students can be treated as adults, and I believe that we should give the kids the best, most honest education we can provide. I think we should expose students to every type of reading, writing, philosophy, science, and practice we comprehend, and I think we should also work to learn those things we do not comprehend. I believe that teaching opportunities happen every day and every minute for the students, but I also think that we teachers need to seek out those teaching opportunities for ourselves. We we encounter something we do not know or understand, we should work to educate ourselves. We should pass on what we’ve learned to the students. If the job of an educator is to be a parent, then we must strive to answer every question of “Why?”

Where do you want to take us?

I want to take our faculty and our student body beyond what’s expected. If our ultimate goal is to create critical thinkers, then we need to act as critical thinkers. I think we need to open the boundaries of our teaching and step into the ether to answer the questions our students seek. We need a willingness to say “I don’t know the answer to that question,” when the kids ask difficult ones, and we need to be able to share with our students the process of learning that information. Kids aren’t dumb, they’re inquisitive, and they need and seek guidance. We can’t tell them what to think (unless it’s a scientific or mathematical proof), but we can show them that asking questions requires a follow-through.

Why you?

Because I actually care about walking kids through a series of hoops to show them that life is not a series of hoops. Life is a series of conflicts and resolutions. Our job is to make our students able to take part in the resolution. My job is to make them realize that if they don’t take part in creating their own future, someone else will do it for them, and that won’t always work out to their liking.

What qualifies you for this job?

I’m here, aren’t I?

But a more serious answer would be a copy of the previous answer: I want to help students see that school is not a punishment; I want them to take an active part in learning learning learning. I want them to succeed and I want to take them to a point where there figure out that what you do in life is not something you accept.

What makes you think you can do this?

Sheer defiance.

Do you really know what you’re getting yourself into?

No, I don’t. And that’s why having this opportunity to open a new school is so interesting to me. I don’t think I’m valuable to the community, and I don’t think I can adequately provide an education to my students. I don’t thin I can learn the kids as individuals. I don’t think I have the skills to teach, and I don’t think I model the skills students need in the future. I think I’m learning right along with the students, and I think that I model a self-deprecating person. So maybe that’s a strength. If I am at all capable, it’s to show students that I am currently in class alongside them. I support them. I am them.

What changes are you planning to make?

• I want to enter us into the Scripps spelling bee.
• I want to have my students participate in NPR’s StoryCorps.
• I want my students to participate in the NaNoWriMo.
• I want my students to Read 4 Novels.
• I want my students to write 10 papers.
• I want my students to learn research and writing by doing both for their other classes. Meaning, I want to help create a cross-curricular educational process for the kids, where they research and write for their other classes. I want them to use my class a method to learn how to learn about the topics in other classes.
• I want to enable the creation of a learning community, and by that I mean not only the students, but to bring in their parents as co-learners and advocates for the education system.
• I want to be a smarter teacher.
• I want to be a better teacher.
• I want to create a learning environment where the process (of all classes) leads to an attainable goal for all students.

And while all of this is still preliminary and completely unsubstantiated, It’s my plan.

Shaving Face

And here I am without beard for the first time in years. (Read here to find out why.) You will get no pictures.

I shaved off my beard in the middle of the lunchroom in the middle of lunchtime. Isn’t that tantalizing. No one was available to take pictures (thank the good lord), but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a cellphone video lurking about somewhere. I asked the kids to pick up the shavings and try to sell them on eBay for whatever profit they could find, but I have doubts that money will filter back through to the district.

Of course, there were a few comments:

You look stupid.

Now your face looks like the top of your head.

You really shouldn’t have done that.

Now you actually look younger than [an older teacher].

All I’ll say is that it’s a little colder. Especially cold because of this comment:

You look like a pedophile.

And while this post is meant to show off how willing I am to do anything to ensure my students succeed, that last comment made me wonder why there are no popular national news stories about teachers who make a difference or teachers who enrich the lives of their students.

In no way am I saying that shaving off my beard enriched the students — I’m not trying to take credit here for anything more than to say that somehow, in some way, I might have enabled my students to pass the state test. But any time you hear about teachers or read about teachers you only find negative news: Teachers fail to help students pass state tests, Teacher has sex with student, teacher throws Mexican flag in garbage can (which happened in my state).

Why is that?

Maybe, as a people, we should focus on the things that matter and make those things news. Because I could see my own story — shaving the beard — be a part of the local news if I wanted it to be. I could see that piece of fluff thrown all about, but it ultimately means nothing. I teach 190 students every day and half of them don’t give a flying fuck about their education, and they’ve told me so. To top it off, their parents preach similarly. I had a parent in my room just this week whose complaints and rhetoric (which I did not present in the linked post) showed me that he views school as a punishment for his child.

When even our students can turn an act of honor — and again, I’d just like to say that shaving my beard is not honorable, but the fact I lived up to my promise is — into a joke that reflects the common view of teachers, I worry.

Anyway.

Aside from all the politicking here, I even think the pedophile joke is funny. I really do. There’s humor in everything, especially when it hurts.

EFFin’ A! (From F to A)

Alternate title: Beard Be Gone

Last week I lamented the fact that my students underperformed on the state test covering Language Skills. At the same time I praised my students for doing so well on the Reading Skills section of the test. At the time, I think about 92% of my students tested “Proficient,” which means they’re testing at grade level — they’re performing exactly as we would expect a student to perform given the set of information we’re required to teach them.

Students can also score “Advanced,” meaning they’re more than capable of understanding the content of the class; they can score “Basic,” meaning their performances are just below expectations; and they can score “Below Basic,” which happens from time to time, and were these scores only used as a measure of student performance and teacher performance at the district and state levels (meaning: leaving out NCLB) so that we could monitor student progress and align curriculum and focus on bettering ourselves without the worry of losing funding (because you would think that a failing school would get more funding to help better the environment for the students), but that’s all another story.

Maybe I’m complaining about NCLB because this is our fourth year as a failing school. We “fail” because we’re seemingly not capable of reaching “all students” and making “all students” proficient in those three areas (four, if you count the Science Skills test given in the 7th grade). And this means making the general population proficient as well as the Special Education students and the English as a second Language students and the Minority students proficient. This all in an overpopulated school with students largely from a lower socioeconomic background — I believe our student body hovers at 75% for free/reduced lunch.

Maybe I shouldn’t make generalizations, but I’m not trying to blame any teacher or any administrator for this failure. We’ve spent the last three years thoroughly examining the standards and our practice. We’ve created Data Teams to scour students’ testing histories, we’ve organized learning lunches for the teachers and for the students, we’ve found ways to fund test preparation specialists, study groups, tutoring sessions, and more often than not our teachers and students come to school early for extra instruction. The teachers are working together on lessons and evaluating our assignments against the standards. The kids are focused on taking apart the test, and we have several class sessions based on analyzing a question for content and scope.

In a word, or three: We’ve worked our asses off.

And today we got some very promising, second-round preliminary news: That language test we bombed? We scored higher than last year. That’s good news. According to NCLB if we can’t meet proficiency, we must prove that this year’s kids perform better than last year’s kids. We’ve done that, and to finally hear it feels great.

On top of that, the Reading Skills scores are off the chart. Something around 73% for the entire school, and for the 8th grade — my classes and my team — we’re up in the 90th percentile, and well above last year’s scores.

Seriously, 90% of our students are Proficient (and better) in Reading Skills. That’s phenomenal! That’s unheard of! That’s so fantastic I might just need a change of pants.

Add to that the fact that I promised my students that I’d shave off my beard and reveal the true horror behind it if 90% of them scored Proficient on the test. Their final score: 88%, which is a damn good amount of students Proficient, and they should be damn proud of themselves for doing such good work and for understanding so much of the content of my course, that I think I’ll just go ahead and do it anyway. It’s a little thing for me, but it’ll be just embarrassing enough to make them happy.

I hope they’re proud of themselves, because they should be.

A Parent said to me today:

Why didn’t you escort him back to his desk?

This type of question bugs me because it requires me to do something outside of my job requirements. And trust me, I know and understand that being a teacher requires so much more from us than to simply pass off information. It requires us to be adults, parents, examiners, practitioners, confidantes, police, comics, judge bailiff and jury, friends, fiends, uncles aunts sisters and brothers, neighbors, politicians, repairmen (and women), cooks, delivery people, janitors, drivers, aides, dancers, hosts, emcees, brethren, litigants, manufacturers, dumpster-divers, garbagemen, doctors, nurses, receptionists, lawyers, spokespeople, landscapers, architects, upholsterers, librarians, framers, directors and actors, and all the while function as unassuming commoners. But when it comes to being asked to do one of those jobs I get irate.

My simple answer was: I will not follow your son around the room. Because I will not accept that I am being asked to coddle or wipe.

The simple answer I got in return was a sigh.

Hey, there’s more in there!

Today we read the short story Aunty Misery, by Juth Ortiz Cofer. It’s a characteristic folk tale — a short story teaching a moral, or a life-lesson, and involves the customary “Magical Realism” found in such work. We covered this information in the first minute or so of class and found ways to relate the magical realism to the last short story we read: The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs.

Magical Realism, for an 8th grader can be taught as simply as this: Where the story told could be completely real, except for one moment or instance of impossibilities, such as a wish. You can, as I did, also tell your students that learning this term in middle school puts them ahead of the regular Literature game by about 5 years. (And I only make this generalism because I didn’t encounter Magical Realism, as a term, as a writing technique, until my first year of college.)

So this story is a simple one, but has a little mysticism built in, and it’s short enough that I’ll just post it here:

Aunty Misery

This is a story about an old, very old woman who lived alone in her little hut with no other company than a beautiful pear tree that grew at her door. She spent all her time taking care of her pear tree. But the neighborhood children drove the old woman crazy by stealing her fruit. They would climb her tree, shake its delicate limbs, and run away with armloads of golden pears, yelling insults at “Aunty Misery,” as they called her.

One day a pilgrim stopped at the old woman’s hut and asked her permission to spend the night under her roof. Aunty Misery saw that he had an honest face and bade the traveler come in. She fed him and made a bed for him in front of her hearth. In the morning, while he was getting ready to leave, the stranger told her that he would show his gratitude for her hospitality by granting her one wish.

“There is only one thing that I desire,” said Aunty Misery.

“Ask and it shall be yours,” replied the stranger, who was a sorcerer in disguise.

“I wish that anyone who climbs up my pear tree should not be able to come back down until I permit it.”

“Your wish is granted,” said the stranger, touching the pear tree as he left Aunty Misery’s house.

And so it happened that when the children came back to taunt the old woman and to steal her fruit, she stood at her window watching them. Several of them shimmied up the trunk of the pear tree and immediately got stuck to it as if with glue. She let them cry and beg for a long time before she gave the tree permission to let them go, on the condition that they would never steal her fruit or bother her.

Time passed, and both Aunty Misery and her tree grew bent and gnarled with age. One day another traveler stopped at her door. This one looked suffocated and exhausted, so the old woman asked him what he wanted in her village. He answered her in a voice that was dry and hoarse, as if he had swallowed a desert. “I am Death, and I have come to take you with me.”

Thinking fast, Aunty Misery said, “All right, but before I go, I would like to pluck some pears from my beloved pear tree, to remember how much pleasure it brought to me in this life. But, I am a very old woman and cannot climb to the tallest branches where the best fruit is; will you be so kind as to do it for me?”

With a heavy sigh like wind through a catacomb, Death climbed the pear tree. Immediately he became stuck to it as if with glue. And no matter how much he cursed and threatened, Aunty Misery would not give the tree permission to release Death.

Many years passed, and there were no deaths in the world. The people who make their living from death began to protest loudly. The doctors claimed no one bothered to come in for examinations or treatments anymore because they did not fear dying; the pharmacists’ business suffered, too, because medicines are, like magic potions, bought to prevent or postpone the inevitable; the priests and undertakers were unhappy with the situation also, for obvious reasons. There were also many old folks tired of life who wanted to pass on to the next world to rest from the miseries of this one.

Aunty Misery realized all this, and not wishing to be unfair, she made a deal with her prisoner, Death: if he promised not ever to come for her again, she would give him his freedom. He agreed. And that is why so long as the world is the world, Aunty Misery will always live.

via

The Reality

This is set up in the first paragraph with the children trampling Aunty’s lawn and stealing fruit from her pear tree. I know this is real because I did this as a child and shared it with my students — When I was a child, my best friend lived two houses away and we always played games of soccer or football or kick-the-can or hide-and-seek or tag across those four yards. Between my house and the friend’s house were two yards owned by older folks who just didn’t appreciate us killing the lawns and stomping on their flowers. When they kicked us out we headed to the alley where the wild fruit grew. And being a true middle school teacher I made sure to add that every time we sneaked into the neighbors yards to steal raspberries and strawberries and apricots that we were naturally stricken with diarrhea. After careful observation, I found that the strongest joke to follow this short story was sthis: And then we had diarrhea fights. And just to add a little to their imaginations, you might want to say: But we didn’t use our hands, we just aimed.

Anyway, Digging Deeper

I stopped every paragraph or so — Aunty Misery is beautifully arranged — to talk about the realism and about the magical realism. We talked about Karma (bringing in a term from another class) to discuss the fate of the characters before we even knew what would happen. The students have learned about Karma and boil it down to the phrase: “What Goes Around Comes Around,” and having this prior knowledge helped them understand that the boys in this story were going to suffer from bad karma — they acted improperly and would suffer some indignity for it. They also figure out that the wish Aunty Misery received would net her exactly what she wanted because she did a good deed to acquire the wish. She didn’t ask for anything from the pilgrim, and made her wish only to law down a rule about personal property. Unlike the characters in The Monkey’s Paw, Aunty Misery had no greed in her wish.

Then Death Shows Up

And that dude is a whiner. He makes this whole story hilarious. He sighs when Aunty Misery makes a final wish. He complains because he hears this every time he takes away a life. He seems to be a naturally good guy (time here for a discussion about Protagonists and Antagonists and how we view them) because this obviously isn’t the first time he’s allowed a final request. If it was the first time, he wouldn’t sigh the same way teenager do when they’re asked to do something for the thousandth time (like “clean your room,” or “take out the trash,” or “bury your sister”).

And the Whole World Goes to Shit

Once Death is out of the picture — remember, he’s stuck in the tree (and according to the story, we really don’t know how long he’s been there, because it says “Many years passed” — it could be 4, or 20, or 180 years, who knows? — and on a similar point, when Aunty Misery left those boys up in the pear tree at the beginning of the story it said she left them up for “a long time,” which could be 3 minutes, or it could be 3 hours, or it could be 3 days (again, who knows)) — everyone in the world is suddenly immune to dying. If Death can’t make his rounds, then everyone’s sitting around waiting.

That’s why, in the story it talks about who Death really helps: doctors, pharmacists, the clergy, undertakers, etc. And after a while, Aunty understands she’s making the world worse and trades eternal life for Death being free to do his work.

Let’s stop talking about the story

Here I told the kids the story was cute and all, but that I wanted to get into the nitty gritty. I wanted to think about the “realistic” side of the story, and not worry about the old lady who cheated death. We made a list on the board of all the people affected by Death’s absence and talked about why they’d be upset. I started with the Clergy.

Clergy: If we focus purely on Western religion the we have to think about the concepts of heaven and hell, and the fact that those religions ask their followers to lead a moral life and believe in their deity. Simple accordance of these rules will generally lead those followers to heaven. Refusal to do so will lead the followers to hell, and so they try to live morally. But if they do not die, and cannot die, then the need to go anywhere after this life is unnecessary. If you’re not going up or down after you die, then there’s no need to follow a code. And if there is no code to follow, then there’s no need to be informed of that code. Hence, upset clergy.

No one was going to church because they saw no goal. No one going to church meant the church was not funded (as many churches are funded by the followers), and without funding or followers the clergy could not operate.

We had a lengthy discussion about this which led the kids to start offering answers for the other people mentioned in the story.

• Doctors: If no one was dying then their workflow would decrease by half, at least.
• Pharmacists: No need to make drugs to prolong life. Funding decreased by at least half.
• Undertakers: No business, period.

And the kids brought up a few more topics, but I staved them off to discuss this in small groups before sharing with the class. Each group was supposed to offer at least one reason each group was upset and list it on the whiteboard (if it wasn’t already listed by another group), and to create a new subgroup who was also affected by the absence of Death. I gave them five minutes and then handed out markers. I even left the room to get a drink, they were so involved in the discussion.

The kids added the following (which are abbreviated below)

• Police: They’re overburdened. The whole world devolves into chaos because people aren’t afraid of dying, and thus crime goes up.
• Businesses: They go bankrupt because people won’t show up to work any more. There’s no reason to save money or even to acquire it, especially if you can loot (with no fear of dying).
• Crime: Crime benefits. It becomes a way of life.

The Benefits

And then this led to another discussion about the benefits of a life without death. The kids were able to see past all the bad stuff to discuss what might actually come out of having to deal with a problem. (I guess this is a model of getting students to understand the phrase: “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”)

• Law: People would have to find a new way of living with one another. Crime couldn’t go on forever — people would get bored with it. A new set of rules would have to be borne from this mess.
• Science: One result of no death is overpopulation, and this would require people to seek out new worlds, new planets, new places to live once the Earth gave out.
• Equality: We’d have to find a way to work together, because ultimately we’re like Aunty Misery — we’re good people, and we want to live simply.

Where’s the Story?

We stopped talking about the story a long time ago. We forgot about Aunty Misery and started talking about ourselves, about our lives, and about how our world works. We talked about personal responsibility and about human nature. I think the students were very astute in their belief that (and it was every class brought this up) chaos is the result of a world without death.

Our discussion is one that might reach across several lessons. Hell, it could extend for a semester or even a year, but I kept it central to just today’s lesson. I wanted the kids practicing what we good readers practice, which is to take a story and enjoy it; to laugh along with it; to see the reality and the seriousness buried inside, and to apply what we know about life and extend the story to our own world.

We’re not that far separated from the characters we read about, and their worlds often intersect with ours, and what happens to those characters might actually influence the decisions we make in our own lives. This is why we read, and this is why we enjoy reading. We don’t do it for school, or because someone tells us to — we read because we want to expand our thinking. We read because we want to evaluate ourselves. And I think we accomplished that today.

Linguistically Speaking

While not exactly school related, I thought it might interest you. our language is changing to the point where we, and especially our students, speak in acronyms. We’ve shortened our language into a series of letters and numbers, and I fear it will only progress until our entire method of communication is a series of bleeps and burps, codes and signs, and today I noticed a new marker of this change written on the bedroom window of my neighbor’s house.

The neighbors have about fifteen kids, and they’re all afraid to come into our yard to retrieve the footballs and soccer balls and bouncy balls that land on our lawn — they always send the neighbor kid to do that.

Anyway, while I was mowing the lawn after school (what better way to relieve any built-up tension than to kill a bunch of grass) I noticed a message written in marker on one of the bedroom windows. It read: Kylie and Marcus BFFF.

Now, I understand BFF. It’s “Best Friends Forever.” Everybody knows that. It’s been used so much that it’s even shown up in commercials. Another web acronym (known heretofore as chatspeak) that’s shown up in commercials lately is OMFG, or “Oh my fucking god.” I’d like to think we all know that one, too.

But the neighbor kids have BFFF written on their window, and I’m puzzled. Are they trying to mix up the acronyms? Are they trying to insert a swear word into their emblazoned declaration of friendship? Are they part of the conglomerate British Frozen Food Federation? Do they stutter? Who knows.

It’s interesting, and I must admit that as I mowed the lawn I was chanting to myself:

• Best friends forever, finally.
• Best friends for-fucking-ever
• Banking For Foreign Finances
• Blue Fish Find (Other) Fish

Again, who knows.

If it’s the first, then fine. If it’s the second, that just doesn’t match the acronym; where’s the E?. If it’s the third, then I need to talk to those teenager about refinancing my home. If it’s the fourth or any others, then I’m at a total loss.

Ultimately I figured it was a sign written by the parents, reading:

• Best Friends Fucking Forever

Because, wouldn’t that be a memorable wedding vow?

These kids have taken something understood and changed it, and now I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind — What does it all mean?

Friday Haiku

Sad Songs Say So Much

A mysterious visitor showed up in my classroom today to let me know how he’s doing. It’s been about a year since I saw him last, and at that time he was recovering from shotgun wounds. Prior to that I saw him just after he’d dropped out of school. Prior to that I saw him as a student about to dropout, and prior to that he was my student.

He gave me hell my first year of teaching, and there’s no way I’ll ever forget this kid. Not because he gave me hell, and certainly not because his story is a sad one, but because this is the student who has so much potential. He’s the kid with that hidden drive. The kid with something brewing and bubbling down in him, but who hasn’t yet figured it out.

• This is the kid who doesn’t do shit in your class, even though you know he could.
• And this isn’t the kid who can do all that stuff and can prove it to you in conversation, but won’t do the work.
• This is the kid who could do it all, but who refuses to show you his understanding.
• This is the kid whose reputation is so at stake that he will not be the person he could be.

And yet it’s been four years since I’ve seen him. And yet I can’t keep this kid out of my head.

Every time he shows up, it’s a surprise. He couldn’t have surprised me more than he did today. He said:

“I’m a dad.”
“I’m not working.”
“There are people who are trying to keep me from my son.”
“I spent the last few months in jail.”
“There’s a warrant out for my arrest.”
“I’m trying to complete my GED.”

I won’t add much else to this story, but let it speak for itself. I love this kid dearly, and see that he’s growing into a man. I see he’s making excuses as often as he makes poor decisions. I’ll cast unbaited hopes for him into murky ether, trawling for lucky tugs, because he deserves that. At least.

Dead Guy Walkin’

I’m not much a fan of state tests. I write about them quite a bit. More often than is appreciated, that’s for sure. And last night I was visited by bad dreams and worries about today’s reading test. Last week the students took the Language Test (read: grammar, vocabulary, and literary device test) and the results were surprisingly awful. Bad in the way that it might just have ruined the remainder of my year. Bad in the way that I felt I have not taught the students anything.

But today, during the Reading Test (comprehension, evaluation, structure, analysis) I noticed something — no one was failing. No one was doing poorly. Everyone was doing well.

As a matter of fact, of the students I tested today only two underperformed.

Let me make this a little clearer. During the Language test I watched as several students, per class, underperformed. I watched them make mistakes. I watched them hurry through the test, and their answers and scores showed that they do not fully comprehend the subjects we’ve covered in class. That was a difficult day and I went home to the drink questioning what it is I’ve done to mar the educational environment insofar as to make several students show a loss in understanding (from prior tests).

And today I realized that I must have focused solely on reading strategies and similar ilk because those kids rocked the Reading Test. They rocked it hard. As I said before, of the classes I proctored, only two students underperformed, and their scores were just below the proficiency mark. (Both those students scored better on today’s test than they did on the prior test.)

In the other proctor’s class, only five students underperformed.

And of all the classes I teach one is comprised completely of lower-performing students, and whether this is by design or by some larger plan, I have no idea. It is my understanding that all the classes I teach are directed toward same-level education for equally performing students. But I do not choose which students are enrolled in a specific period.

Two weeks ago I drank myself into a stupor. Today I’m doing the same.
But today I’m proud. Today those kids showed me they learned, they understood, they knew what they were asked. They performed (albeit in a way I wouldn’t personally choose for them to show their knowledge), and they showed me exactly what they’ve taken from my class.

While it’s too late, I’m happy I have the chance to look back over my teaching to see what it is I’ve spaced. I’m happy to figure out what I’ve not taught (or, at least, what I’ve not taught thoroughly), and I’m happy to be home happy with the fact that I’m not a completely worthless teacher.

I couldn’t be prouder of my students that I am today. They’ve proven me they’re not just showing up for class.

Full Disclosure: While these students underperformed on the Language Test, their scores are in line with the prior year’s students. While they “failed,” overall, they did so at a similar rate as their predecessors. I’d like to think it’s a reminder that each year we’re given a new batch of kids, and that we can’t truly believe that each year will prove better, stronger, or technically “smarter” students. I could be wrong.

Anyway, here’s to improvement.

*clink*