It's Only October

I find that lately I have a lot to process about how I teach, how to improve, and how to find balance in my life. I am both more excited than I have ever been about what happens in my classroom and more exhausted than I have ever been by the workload I bring home. I burn the candle late at night and find that I am always behind where I would like to be.  As Mike wrote in his last post, I am struggling to find a way to give regular meaningful feedback and not feel like I am drowning.  In a morning collaboration meeting yesterday, he said it well: ‘I need to learn how to breath water.” And it’s only October.

At 6:45 last Monday morning, one of my AP Lit doubters came in to see me about her essays. We sat down and took a look at the three impromptus she has written so far, including one that I had not yet scored. As we looked them over and I showed her exactly where she could make improvements, she nodded her head and explained that she had trouble organizing her thoughts. She admitted that she’d always done well in English and was having a hard time hearing criticism from me and her peers. We scored her third essay together, and as we looked at the descriptors on the rubric, she saw what she had accomplished but also where she had clearly fallen short. She told me what she thought her score should be in each criterion, and she was right on the mark. And as we wrapped up our meeting she said, “Why didn’t I come talk to you weeks ago?” That Monday morning doubter-turned-considerer asked me as she left, “When do we get to do another impromptu?” When I told her she’d have the chance again in 10 days, she said, relieved, ‘Oh good. I finally get it, and I would be so annoyed if there was only one more chance to show you what I can do.” She’s so relieved that it’s only October.

On Friday, my 9th graders had their 2nd summative assessment of the year. Before we started, a young man in my 5th hour class asked me, terrified, “What if I don’t know the answer to one of the questions?” I paused. I thought about it.  Prior to using Empowered Learning, that young man would have left a question blank and lost points for it. End of story. But by looking at students’ work holistically and giving them room to show me what they know and can do, I was so glad to be able to say, “Well, Criterion A evaluates ‘your understanding of the works studied and an effective response to literature.’ So, if you don’t know an answer, couldn’t you write about something you DO know about the epic?” He paused. He thought about it. He nodded. He’s starting to get it, and it’s only October.

A colleague and I have been talking a lot about Empowered Learning during our prep hour. She teaches Spanish, and she desperately wants to move to this style of teaching and learning. Initially, she wasn’t sure she had the time to dedicate to the transition, but about a week ago, she decided she couldn’t wait. She couldn’t ignore her frustrations with points and homework completion and a lack of student ownership. So, she just went for it. She spent hours working her lesson plans over for the next unit, trying to create opportunities for students to practice their skills with a clear rubric in mind and without the fear of failure and penalty. She sent me a great email on Wednesday that just said, “The engagement in my class is out of bounds right now! :-)” And, imagine, it’s only October.

A senior came to me and said she had a dilemma. She is applying early decision to a university that requires students to send in their 1st quarter grades. She said she was afraid she might lose her chance at admission because she doesn’t have an A yet. But it’s only October! How can we teach kids to love learning when we constantly tell them that they have to be perfect before they’ve had a chance to practice?

Some of my students really, really want lectures, study guides, homework checks, and desks in rows. They don’t like working in groups, they don’t like self-assessment, and they don’t like that even though they work hard, they might not get an A. Part of me really wants to tell my students everything I know about every text we study. I won’t lie that their dislike of my teaching method sometimes feels like a doubt about my content knowledge, and my desire to flaunt what I know is hard to suppress. But I also think that for most students, learning gets truncated when they are told what to see in the literature they read, when assignments exist in isolation, or when they are allowed to think in isolation. And a lot of students seem to see grades as being given to them by the teacher rather than earned by themselves.

For now, I’m going to try to be patient because it’s only October while trying not to lose steam because it’s only October.