What a good week

It may have taken me 12 weeks but I think I finally have this teaching thing down. Don’t get me wrong, my students have been learning and I have had my share of successful lessons and activities since September, however, this week just came together so well and helped show me that all of my hard work is paying off. Alhamdulillah.

My first sign was a routine math fluency assessment, an activity that we have been doing since mid September - something that some students love and others hate. I can remember back to Ms. Nestico’s third grade class and “holey cards” where we would review our math facts and race to beat the clock. That was back in the days when I felt good about my math skills, far before Algebra 2 and crying my way through Pre-Calculus. I can sympathize with my students, those who love the activity and those who hate it as I have straddled that line many times.

Since September I have watched one of my students, K, the only one who is on a modified program (which means that I am changing more than 50% if the grade level curriculum)change from groaning when I announce fact fluency practice to giving himself a pep talk before we begin. He is seated at the front of the room so that I can easily assist him with reading and other activities. Just this week, as I watched the stopwatch click its way down, K shouted “I did it! I finished!” This little boy, who struggled to complete 18 out of the 25 problems back just a few weeks ago completed and correctly answered 25 out of 25.

Being the overly emotional person that I am, a trait that runs through the blood of all Minors, I got teary eyed at seeing his success. As I announced to Ms. Rana just how proud I was of my 4th graders and to give themselves a pat on their back for learning so much, K said, “Ms., if you’re so happy why are you about to cry?” I then explained that sometimes people cry happy tears and that I couldn’t be prouder of all of them.

When meeting with my principal to go over my Professional Learning Plan, an extensive reflective assessment where teachers evaluate their strengths and pinpoint areas they want to work to improve, I shared the success I was seeing in my classroom. I discussed the behavior charts and how one student went from getting 4-5 sad faces(I need to work harder on being quiet and calm) a day to earning that many in a week. We also talked about the positive impact of shortening the school day for one student has made on my teaching and student learning. My principal said, “now that the behavior is under control, they can learn”. It’s true. I no longer am spending 80-90% of my time redirecting or reviewing my classroom expectations. I still identify the students who are modeling positive behaviors, state exactly what I want my students to be doing and move their name tags accordingly under the smiley, middle or sad faces on the board, but I can now actually get through my lessons. In fact on Tuesday, I finished my first complete math lesson of the year!

Right now in Social Studies we are learning about the seven continents. For homework, I assigned a short poem to help them remember the names and locations of the continents.

The Seven Continents
North America, South America joined in the west
Europe and Asia meet together and on Africa they rest
Australia stands alone, floating down below
And Antarctica is the loneliest where no one wants to go.

Yesterday, six out of my seven students proudly stood in front of the classroom and recited the poem from memory. Once they finished, they anxiously looked over to see my reaction and wait for their praise for a job well done. I began doing power point presentations on each of the continents and will continue next week. Now that I feel I have a hold on the behavior problems, I’ve found so much more time and energy to really put into my teaching. I’ve (finally) started integrating technology into my classroom and have been able to engage my students in my lessons.

All in all, a wonderful week. Only two more to go and it’ll be a 4-week vacation back in Connecticut :)