One of my reading collabs from this summer forwarded me a text today from Sage, one of our students at institute. I've talked about Sage before as one of the students who really inspired me with her drive and enthusiasm this summer. The text ended "I am so happy right now that I had pass the test." Felicia's follow-up text when she sent it along to me was "Best text I have ever received."
Over the last week, we've started to get news from our faculty advisors this summer about how our students fared on the CRCT. The exciting news came to Felicia today from her faculty advisor: every single one of our students passed the reading portion of the CRCT. This was pleasantly surprising to us--there were certain students, like Malik, who we thought wouldn't make it through. The news on the math side, however, is not so good. Of the five students we know about, just three have passed.
Three of the five outcomes of our math students were not surprises. Sage and Anton we were close to positive would pass, and they pulled it out. On the other hand, that Malik failed the math portion of the test was unfortunately not a surprise to us. We were happy that Damon, an incredibly bright kid who tends to rush through tests without checking his work, slowed down and passed the test, which we knew he was capable of. And the one that hurts the most is Jasmine, who improved but not enough to pass--she barely missed the cutoff.
I want very badly to focus on my kids' successes--that 60% of the students we know about are going through to high school, something that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been there to teach them this summer. But that 40% of them are not going to high school--that Malik is headed back to eighth grade for the third time--kills me. And it kills me that it's math that held them back. For all of our hard work, and more importantly, for all of their hard work, it wasn't enough. And I can't help but feel, once again, that I failed them, that maybe some other teacher would have been able to get through to Jasmine in a way that we couldn't, that some other teacher would have better known how to differentiate lessons to keep Malik more engaged and fill in the gaps in his math knowledge.
I've spent a lot of this week thinking about my vision for my third grade math classroom for the year (mostly because TFA is making me write one this week). Setting the concrete goals--80% mastery on all third-grade math GLEs, and 100% basic and above and 80% mastery and above on the iLEAP--was scary, but simple enough. My goal is incredibly ambitious. 100% basic and 80% mastery on the iLEAP are the scores of Lusher, the top-performing elementary school in the city. For reference, the latest available iLEAP scores for my school (from two years ago) had 18% of the third grade at basic, 1% at mastery, and 0% at advanced. This is daunting, to say the least. But as my PD keeps reminding me, this is what closing the achievement gap would look like: making my classroom into a Lusher classroom. And it's better to aim crazy high and fall a little bit short than to aim for a mediocre goal and barely make it.
But after our workshopping session on Tuesday, and as these CRCT scores come trickling in, I'm starting to refine my vision to be driven by more than just ambitious numbers. What I really want for my students is for them to never, ever have those gaps in knowledge that my eighth graders had this summer. I want to teach my kids how to add and multiply well this year so that when they learn about negative numbers, they don't get bogged down. I want algebra to be easy for them in eighth grade because they have a solid foundation in computation and number sense. I want the concepts of fractions and percents to be second nature, not an obstacle to overcome with every problem. And I want them to love math and not back down from a challenging problem.
My students this summer inspired me every day with their desire to learn, but they had been failed by their education. My greatest hope is that five years down the road, my kids have that same desire to learn, but with the skills and confidence to excel. I have the exciting challenge of getting to teach my kids one of the most fundamental skills in math--multiplication and division. My hope is that by keeping my eighth graders in mind every step of the way, I will keep finding the inspiration to make sure my third graders master it with pride.
And I am going to keep this feeling of failure and guilt in mind to make sure that none of my students meet the same fate as Malik and Jasmine on their state tests in April. I can't change what happened to them, but I can do my best to make sure that none of my third graders have to feel that way come spring.
Over the last week, we've started to get news from our faculty advisors this summer about how our students fared on the CRCT. The exciting news came to Felicia today from her faculty advisor: every single one of our students passed the reading portion of the CRCT. This was pleasantly surprising to us--there were certain students, like Malik, who we thought wouldn't make it through. The news on the math side, however, is not so good. Of the five students we know about, just three have passed.
Three of the five outcomes of our math students were not surprises. Sage and Anton we were close to positive would pass, and they pulled it out. On the other hand, that Malik failed the math portion of the test was unfortunately not a surprise to us. We were happy that Damon, an incredibly bright kid who tends to rush through tests without checking his work, slowed down and passed the test, which we knew he was capable of. And the one that hurts the most is Jasmine, who improved but not enough to pass--she barely missed the cutoff.
I want very badly to focus on my kids' successes--that 60% of the students we know about are going through to high school, something that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been there to teach them this summer. But that 40% of them are not going to high school--that Malik is headed back to eighth grade for the third time--kills me. And it kills me that it's math that held them back. For all of our hard work, and more importantly, for all of their hard work, it wasn't enough. And I can't help but feel, once again, that I failed them, that maybe some other teacher would have been able to get through to Jasmine in a way that we couldn't, that some other teacher would have better known how to differentiate lessons to keep Malik more engaged and fill in the gaps in his math knowledge.
I've spent a lot of this week thinking about my vision for my third grade math classroom for the year (mostly because TFA is making me write one this week). Setting the concrete goals--80% mastery on all third-grade math GLEs, and 100% basic and above and 80% mastery and above on the iLEAP--was scary, but simple enough. My goal is incredibly ambitious. 100% basic and 80% mastery on the iLEAP are the scores of Lusher, the top-performing elementary school in the city. For reference, the latest available iLEAP scores for my school (from two years ago) had 18% of the third grade at basic, 1% at mastery, and 0% at advanced. This is daunting, to say the least. But as my PD keeps reminding me, this is what closing the achievement gap would look like: making my classroom into a Lusher classroom. And it's better to aim crazy high and fall a little bit short than to aim for a mediocre goal and barely make it.
But after our workshopping session on Tuesday, and as these CRCT scores come trickling in, I'm starting to refine my vision to be driven by more than just ambitious numbers. What I really want for my students is for them to never, ever have those gaps in knowledge that my eighth graders had this summer. I want to teach my kids how to add and multiply well this year so that when they learn about negative numbers, they don't get bogged down. I want algebra to be easy for them in eighth grade because they have a solid foundation in computation and number sense. I want the concepts of fractions and percents to be second nature, not an obstacle to overcome with every problem. And I want them to love math and not back down from a challenging problem.
My students this summer inspired me every day with their desire to learn, but they had been failed by their education. My greatest hope is that five years down the road, my kids have that same desire to learn, but with the skills and confidence to excel. I have the exciting challenge of getting to teach my kids one of the most fundamental skills in math--multiplication and division. My hope is that by keeping my eighth graders in mind every step of the way, I will keep finding the inspiration to make sure my third graders master it with pride.
And I am going to keep this feeling of failure and guilt in mind to make sure that none of my students meet the same fate as Malik and Jasmine on their state tests in April. I can't change what happened to them, but I can do my best to make sure that none of my third graders have to feel that way come spring.
Yours is a great attitude. If you have that thought in your mind, you will succeed. To have a good foundation gives confidence, and it can strengthen enthusiasm to learn more. Some kids do not like math because they have never felt secure with it. And then there are some kids who like math better than language skills and really enjoy it. For them challenges are fun if they have the confidence to pursue them, and know they are capable of finding the answer, even though it might take time.
ReplyDeleteKate, you care a lot and you understand how kids feel, as well as how they think. You will be a great teacher