Well, the last full holiday before Winter Break is over. This is the time that the burn out begins until Christmas hits. But today I'm trying to spin things for myself in a positive way.
The last few weeks I've been contemplating whether I'm making a difference with my kids at all. I think I am.
Case #1 - FP told me that he started out the year thinking I was mean and tried to "treat me." In kidspeak that means that he tried to give me a hard time. But at some point during the term, he discovered that he was actually learning more from me than he had ever learned in a math class before. He committed to trying harder in class and doing all his work.
The bad side....FP is in my first block and has been tardy to school every day since that conversation. He has been absent more days in my class than he has been present and is now failing.
Case #2 - One of our students now thinks she wants to go to college and be a teacher. That is not all my doing. In fact, I'm not sure that it's any of my doing, but I know that the environment that we as a staff at the alternative school have provided has influenced this young lady.
Case #3 - I teach a pair of sisters who never thought they were good at math. I get the feeling that they never felt that they were good at academics at all. Now, they are getting A's and B's on everything and feel confident in their abilities.
Case #4 - The student that I was having trouble with at the beginning of the year (being rude, yelling at me, almost violent outbursts in class) said that he has learned more in the last three weeks than he has learned in a math class in the last two years that he has been in high school.
Not all stories are this positive, but really a lot of our students are excelling more than they have in years. Today I just wanted to focus on the positive. I'm so proud of them and how hard they have worked. They overcome personal obstacles every day. Sometimes they have to overcome those obstacles just to get to school in the morning.
If nothing else, I feel like I am doing something good - not just for them, but for me too.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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