excitement. We were anxious to meet our new students, enthusiastic
about the new lessons we had prepared, and hopeful that we would do it
all “right.” Now that we are a few weeks in, we start to question
ourselves about that great success we anticipated. Am I doing this right? Are they getting it?
I always started my year with a super fun-filled unit on the basics of Geography.
Most of this unit should have been review from the 6th grade, but some
of the activities included current articles and modern issues to be
considered by my new-to-high-school 9th graders. My unit included
vocabulary practice, investigative skills, competitive games, and plenty
of map skills practice. Each of the days brought fun and laughter,
inquiry and investigation, and many light bulbs glowing bright!
Throughout the unit, I assessed my students
through daily exit slips, “POP-ORAL QUIZZES” and simple questioning as
my students worked on activities or completed tasks. I often found
myself impressed with the answers my students were providing, and even
in the questions they were asking me about the topics of study. This
unit was a hit!
And then came the first test. The summative assessment.
The big finale! And how did it go? Well, I’ll just say: It did not
go as I expected. Some of my students performed incredibly, while
others seemed to sink in the testing quicksand. How could this be? Did I fail? What do I do now?
How could this be? Simple. Students
are different. Some studied. Some did not. Some took their time on
the test, some finished before I had them all passed out. Some cared
about their performance, some are trying to test the high school waters.
Did I fail? While I always take my
students’ failures as personal failures, I always try to remind myself
that this is never the end. This is just the first test in the first
quarter or the first year of high school. There will be time to change
the early failures to great successes. I just have to work to find the
correct strategies to make a difference.
What do I do now? I teach. I go in
tomorrow and I begin the next unit. Of course, I have now adapted this
coming unit to include the concepts that were not “absorbed” in the last
unit, and I plan to stress the importance of the process in my future
lessons – the entire process from start to finish.
Teaching, just like learning, is NOT about the test.
The test is just one more tool we use in the classroom to see where are
students need us more. The test is never the end; it is just a new
beginning.
So, you ask, how are my classes going? Tomorrow we
start a new unit, and I am so excited! We will be learning about new
things, reviewing some old, and investigating what it means to be a
student in this world. What could be more fun?!
“…Our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”
-Don Williams Jr.
Happy Teaching!