Self-Assessments

I have so much to learn that any small accomplishes seem like the footsteps of a mouse in what is only a generally appropriate direction. Although my second day before a classroom as an official teacher smoothly passed, any amount of success was surpassed by a large amount of learning experiences. During my lessons, I felt in control and confident. I stated and upheld my expectations of respect for me, for each other, and for learning and I checked a few middle-school attitudes at the door. They raised their hands and answered my prompts correctly and I for moments I thought I was born for this.

Then I graded my assessments. What seemed smooth sailing was actually information that sailed smoothly over my students' heads. The grades on the daily assessments ranged from 100% to 45%. My class average was 75%, not nearly good enough to reach our overall goal of demonstrating a class average of 80% or above on the assessments for each standard. I had to ask myself, "What am I doing wrong? How can I make this better?" I am not reaching every student that needs to be reached. Every student can learn, so the gap can only rest in my teaching. Yet the beauty of falling short of your goals is the opportunity to pause and ask yourself what went wrong, because tomorrow is always there as a foundation for improvement. Thus my only goal for tomorrow is to view today as a lesson learned.

I learned something else about myself today. I learned that growing up in a school where every student came on the first day with school supplies still in the package was such a part of my school schema that the thought that my students wouldn't have paper never occurred to me. Each year, my mother took me to a store with rows of colored pens and decorated folders and allowed me to choose whichever sparkled pens and sharpened pencils I wished even though our house had millions of uncapped Bics. I certainly took this for granted. Abused it is more accurate. Today, as I lined students up outside of my door and informed them of the procedure for entering the classroom and removing their math materials from their backpacks, I wrongly assumed that they would have them. I should have taken notice when I instructed the students to open their notebooks and begin copying examples that nobody moved. Slowly a hand, and then two hands, and then three hands went into the air. "I need paper," one student said. I looked around and saw that the majority of students had empty tables in front of them.

"How many students need paper?" I asked. Most hands went into the air. "How many of you have something to write with?" Most hands went down.

This is something else I learned today, but tomorrow I will be prepared. Part of the mission of Teach for America is doing whatever it takes. The fact that the student population of my school does not have school supplies should not keep them from learning, and if doing whatever it takes includes passing out sheets of paper...I say that is a small price to pay.