On the way home from work today, I called my mom--something I often do on the 20-minute drive home, usually to bitch about whatever thing went catastrophically wrong in the third grade that day. Mom knows this, and I think she has begun to mentally prepare herself for a 20-minute long therapy session whenever her phone rings around 7:00. But today, when she asked how my day was, I replied with, "Great!"
There was a pause, and then Mom said, "Well, that's not something you hear every day."
Today was, against all odds, an excellent day in the life of Ms. L. It could have been awful: we were starting time, which I have long been cautioned is one of the two hardest things to teach in elementary school (the other being money), I showed up with a headache, and progress report conferences were beginning after school, a daunting prospect when you just put failing grades on about 70% of your students' report cards. But, for some reason, positive thing after positive thing kept happening. Here's the laundry list:
1. I started a new tracking system for this unit, which involves tracking the percent of students who were basic and above on the day's exit ticket, and then moving them along a treasure map closer to three benchmark goals and rewards. I wasn't sure how it was going to work, but it has totally transformed the way my third block has been working. Frequent readers will remember that my third block is the absolute bane of my existence. But after they had a successful day on Tuesday, and we talked about why their exit tickets were so high--with them offering examples like "I helped my classmates understand"--they have been rocking out ever since. My lowest class has become my highest class, with 67% proficient even on today's challenging objective of telling time.
There was a pause, and then Mom said, "Well, that's not something you hear every day."
Today was, against all odds, an excellent day in the life of Ms. L. It could have been awful: we were starting time, which I have long been cautioned is one of the two hardest things to teach in elementary school (the other being money), I showed up with a headache, and progress report conferences were beginning after school, a daunting prospect when you just put failing grades on about 70% of your students' report cards. But, for some reason, positive thing after positive thing kept happening. Here's the laundry list:
1. I started a new tracking system for this unit, which involves tracking the percent of students who were basic and above on the day's exit ticket, and then moving them along a treasure map closer to three benchmark goals and rewards. I wasn't sure how it was going to work, but it has totally transformed the way my third block has been working. Frequent readers will remember that my third block is the absolute bane of my existence. But after they had a successful day on Tuesday, and we talked about why their exit tickets were so high--with them offering examples like "I helped my classmates understand"--they have been rocking out ever since. My lowest class has become my highest class, with 67% proficient even on today's challenging objective of telling time.
