i've been putting in the grades for my students' first school wide progress reports this evening. i'm passing more than ever, and giving more A's than I have ever given. i know this won't last til June, but i'm glad to see worlds of progress from my kids.

on wednesday my principal said i was as good as a veteran teacher. i'm thinking ok maybe not a *good* veteran. but i can definitely see how in 5 years or so i have the potential to be pretty awesome if i don't get burned out before then!

in other news this week, i let a group of three students teach my class for one period. i had them learn a topic ahead of everyone else and teach in exchange for extra credit, participation points, and homework exemption. it was really something. they couldn't control the class for the first 25 minutes, but eventually they got most of them to quiet down. and the majority learned something. i did have to do a 20 minute recap and review with the the next day but by then everyone understood the topic.

at first these students said they would never teach the class again. but the next day we discussed it as a class. the feedback was mixed. half the class said they liked having their friends up there, that it made them feel more comfortable. the other half said they were horrible teachers and begged me to reteach the topic! the "teachers" said that the class was rude and disrespectful and they didn't know how I dealt with it every day. but by the end of the discussion, the entire class agreed that this was something they'd like to try again. about 10 people said they would like to try teaching, and even the original "teachers" said they would like to try it again. so we're going to attempt this twice a month as long as we're on track and they're being well behaved.

i find that the more i experiment with my classes, the more fun we all have and the easier it is on me!

i made the tough kid cry!

my students drove me up the wall yesterday. today i spent an entire hour with one class giving a pop quiz to piss them off, then discussing their behavior and grading policy.

i explained that behavior was now worth 45% of their final grade, test and quizzes 45%, and hw 10%. they were really shocked. their jaws dropped when i told them that if they routinely misbehave in my class, the best they could hope for is a 55. I told them i'll give them a bunch of 20s and 30s if i have to. They were in disbelief.

One student said he isn't a good test taker so how can he pass my class. We went through the math and saw that even if you average a 50 on my test, if you give 100% of everything else, it's still possible to get around an 80. The kids loved that and decided they could live with my grading policy.

Then we did the math and saw that even if you get a 90 average in my class, if you can't control your behavior, and miss homework, you will get a 55 from me. They were shocked yet again.

After this, they wanted to know what their averages were so far. I went through the entire class list out loud (they all love to share their grades except for one girl!) Everyone was passing since the semester started on Tuesday except for the biggest bully/tough guy/obnoxious kid in the school. He was averaging about a 40. He was very mad and nearly walked out of the room.

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The second class I decided to discuss grades with were much more receptive. They accepted it as is and in addition, they asked for weekly progress reports with their daily behavior grades and notes for improvement. This is a lot of work for me, but if it can help keep a few kids on track, it's worth it. We decided that every friday we'll spend 10-15 minutes discussing their progress. If it works with this class, I might try it with my other classes. I'm actually very proud that they came up with the idea on their own. This class happens to be very motivated, but they can easily get out of control, so I think this might work.
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Fast forward to after school, and the guidance councelor came in to talk to me about the failing kid. The boy was very upset and didn't understand how he could be failing after only 2 days and asked me to speak with him about his options. Well we couldn't find him and when we finally did, he was hiding out in the classroom next door to mine. He came to talk to me and his eyes were damp with tears! I told him what I needed from him tomorrow and what he needs to do from now on. I ran a couple of computer simulations for him to show him that since it's so early, he could be passing by tomorrow already. and by next week he could be in the 80s. but he was choking back tears the entire time. i couldn't believe it. i didn't feel bad for him at all; call me an insensitive bitch, but the kid has been doing the same thing since september. but this time i think it really hit home for once. and i'm glad it did. we'll see if he makes any changes now.

mission complete

I finished grading the massive pile of make-up homeworks that were due to me this past week. Even though I only gave 1/2 credit for the work, my passing rates went up immensely. Right now 64% of my kids are passing my class, up from exactly 50% from the last marking period. 10% of the kids are virtually no shows and about another 10% can't even read or write, let alone add numbers.

that last 15% are just lazy, or really struggling with the material and not putting enough effort into everything else to pass. but i hope i can bring them up and have close to an 80% passing rate by january.

bad test, good lesson

i gave a test this week that i thought would be really easy for them. i made the things they really knew well worth the most points but unfortunately, they either forgot it, or just forgot everything else. i'm not really sure how i would do this unit differently in the future but somehow i didn't prepare them well enough. i got 2 As out of almost 80 students. My top students all got in the 70s and 80s, and a couple even failed.

I was most upset with my CTT class, in which only 4 students passed, with the highest grade a 74. So yesterday I gave them a really fun lesson that covered a specific topic that the test was on. Usually this class is out of control, and it was hard to draw them in, but once I got their attention, everyone but one student was involved. I think every kid in the class was up to the board, even the ones that haven't done a drop of work all semester. At one point I had 10 students up at the same time and it worked great! My class was loud, but it was the most amazing lesson I had ever given. It was so much fun for us all, and when I gave them work to do on their own, they were all trying to outdo each other and go above and beyond my requirements.

Then I gave them homework to create their own examples and told them I'd give them 20 extra points on their test if they hand it in (this particular topic was worth 28 points on the test and they all bombed that part.) And if they made a super-duper example, I'd give them 30 points.

I didn't even have them today but 2 kids stopped by my classroom to drop off their homework early since they were so proud of what they'd done. one kid did 2 super-duper examples instead of the 2 regular ones I assigned. I told him to go home and do another one and he was excited! The other kid that came by is the biggest gangster in the school. He can barely even read or write, and hasn't done an ounce of work in anyone's class so far this year. It's the first homework assignment he's handed in since he started high school. He was so proud of his work, and he also did the super-duper example. He actually almost passed my test!

I'll see what kind of work I get tomorrow, but I might make a big poster with all of their super duper math examples and put it on my honor wall. The CTT kids would never get up their otherwise, and I'm so proud of them.

As for the other classes, I think I'm going to give them a second test for homework and average their two grades. I can't bear to see so many low grades. In the past when half of them failed, at least I had a good distribution. With this one, every student performed terribly! Oops...