Rock Stars in Room D5

Yesterday was a great day! Class went pretty well, one of the Program Directors from GNO (Greater New Orleans) observed me teach, which made me a little nervous, but the lesson seemed to go well and the kids understood how to multiply fractions. I worked with one of our students, M., again after class today. We went over a few concepts that he has been struggling with. He is an amazing kid – his grades have been low and he clearly has always struggled with math, but he is so motivated and determined. I am so impressed by his work ethic! M. is also extremely respectful, he holds doors for me, won’t sit down until I do, etc. I would love to have a class full of students like M. – respectful and hard working – more than a class full of students who aced everything.

Yesterday afternoon was TFA Day – Totally Free Afternoon! They put a session on our schedule called “The Theory and Fundamentals of Backwards Planning” – painfully boring. But really, they psyched us out and gave us the afternoon off from everything! And do you know what I did with that afternoon? I took a two-hour nap. It was amazing! My mother teased me about missing naps from when I was 4 or 5, but the truth is at 20, 21…22, I still need and love afternoon naps! It was glorious!

Today we gave our students their mid-term assessment. The average score of the class was 74, which while low, they ALL improved from the initial assessment on the first day of class. The smallest increase was 54%; the largest was almost 200%!! We were so, SO excited that they had all improved so much! The challenge is though, even with improvement, several are still failing. While we are encouraged and know they have come a long way, they will only see whether they pass and get credit, so we still have a long way to go so they are successful in their own eyes. But to us, they are rock stars!

I was even more impressed today when I taught them my lesson on dividing proper fractions after they took the midterm. Because we gave them a full hour to finish the midterm and did review beforehand, I was very tight for time afterwards. I had to push them through my lesson, we got the notes done but the guided practice and independent practice were seriously abbreviated. I am required to give them an assessment each class, regardless of these time issues, so I told them to do as much as they could, not worry about finishing but focus on accuracy. When I looked over the assessments, I was so impressed! They got the concepts and the steps even though we moved very fast – almost all of them clearly demonstrated they knew how to divide fractions without much trouble. Of the few who struggled, what they wrote down was correct; they just did not get through the whole process or only completed one problem. I only have one student who is totally lost (which he usually is, which is a challenge for us to find a way to instruct him better), so I was blown away. Again, my kids are rock stars! Maybe it helped that the GNO staff gave us all Mardi Gras beads before school this am, which I wore the entire day (including while teaching!). Whatever it takes to lighten class up a little!