What's Been Great in the First 8 Weeks...
A rather grumpy old lady in my neighborhood was complaining about the youth of today and how society is failing. Well, she hasn't seen my students! This year, we have several Severe Education students who are mainstreamed in my classes. I have been deeply touched by the consistent kindness the students show daily: including them, cheering them on and making my classroom a happy place to be. Likewise, students are showing that same behavior to all fellow classmates. Whether it's a high-5, laughs or encouragement, they seem to have each other's backs and it's pretty amazing to watch.
I'm seeing some pretty impressive academic achievement as well. Recently, we had a Sentence Assessment followed by a re-teaching and re-take opportunity. Out of all the students who attended re-teaching, 99% scored higher-WOW! Students are using Flex time to catch up, emailing me, talking to me before and after school--each student wanting to know how to improve their grade. Totally awesome.
The Global Gecko!
Our first school newspaper will officially launch tomorrow and I couldn't be prouder of 2nd period Honors. From day one, we organized the paper, divided up into teams and reached consensus on every major decision. Props to Ellie Stark for pitching the Global Gecko newspaper name. Students were totally invested and have OWNED their section of the newspaper, working tirelessly with creativity and positive attitudes to create something that they can really be proud of. Another cool thing was Luke Bryan drawing our mascot (the day we talked about presenting one). The class voted to use it. Shade Joines immediately outlined and refined it with pen and passed it off to David Cosby who created a usable digital copy...talk about synergy! Our Layout Dept. (David, Shade, Katie Rubio and Rebekah Gentry) took charge of making sure the paper looked great and everyone was included. I'm so impressed by everyone's sense of ownership and pride in this monthly project. It's been the most rewarding and fun-to-watch moment of my teaching career.
iRead Program
I spent the summer researching how to help students become life-long readers. The 7th grade LA team and I created a program called iRead,which is all about students choosing to read, learning good reading skills and being rewarded. Yesterday in 6th period, a student mentioned that when I introduced this program (to read 10 books per trimester, 12 for Honors), he thought I was crazy and that he could never do it. Then, he looked at me with a big smile and said he'd already read 9! Suddenly, hands shot up and students shared similar stories. For some students who have been frustrated with reading, feeling success and reading more than the average American adult (3 books a year, by the way) is the BEST feeling ever. Several students already have Bingo on their tracking card and a handful of students are already on their way to a full blackout. I am so proud of them.
I am in my 3rd year of teaching and this is the best behaved, hardest working, enjoyable bunch of students I have taught. If the first 8 weeks have been this great, I can't WAIT for the rest of the year. The best is definitely yet to come--bring it on!
