My New Generation of Students

I have now had my new students for 2 weeks. It has been a lot of change and an even bigger adjustment for me, but we are trudging along. I must say I have been pleasantly surprised by these new students of mine. I am particularly excited about my freshman honors class. We were discussing what we were going to read for our literature circles. Usually, when I would introduce the idea of reading, my students have TRADITIONALLY met this statement with disgust! Not my freshmen honors students! Immediately, they began to ransack my shelves! They checked out like thirty books! No kids had ever checked out my books! Ever! This was refreshing! Just imagine what I can do with kids who love to read! I will definitely be rethinking my syllabus with those students!!! I am so excited to teach them.

The other intriguing element to my 2nd week is my AP students. Now that all 21 of them have arrived, I think this will be the class to propel us to the top. These students definitely are trying very hard to learn. I sometimes am taken aback by what they don't know about history or current events, or that they haven't written much, but despite this, these students do attempt to work very hard to find out what they don't know. That is exciting. In addition, I am not missing one single assignment from these students! That is extremely encouraging. I am so excited to get into this curriculum with these juniors- and they seem excited to go there with me.

The one disheartening aspect of my week, however, is that with my standard English students, they have never been made to think. They are so used to people giving them busy work or telling them answers, that they are unaware how they should think. That deeply troubles me. Simple inferences were slightly difficult for them. High stakes testing has taken over, and teaching and learning has lost significant ground to teaching for the test. These students haven't been made to use their minds at all. Using context clues was a struggle for these students. Inferring about a political cartoon was difficult for them. I have my work cut out with them. The upside to this is that, these students are at least willing to try for me and enjoy my class. As long as I build on that enthusiasm, we will get where we need to go. Sometimes in the world of teaching, enthusiasm is everything. If I can just get them to read and truly ponder what they have read and make a judgement about that reading, just imagine what my scores will look like! The process of getting this to happen is where my apprehension lies.

I have my work cut out for me in three different ways, but I totally accept these challenges.

Changes

So this will not take long, and will not be profound. This week, I got new kids. In my career, I have taught two groups of kids. The first group, I had for three years. I taught those kids from 6th grade through 8th. When they went to 9th grade, I left and took my career to a whole new level. The second group I taught for 2 years. They all just became seniors. I grew a lot with those kids. And even though they flattered me this week with the "I miss you" or "Why didn't you go with us", I can't help but have my eyes pinned to the future. I was a pretty decent teacher for those kids. And although it never ceases to amaze me how attached kids can become to you even at your worst, I am a far better teacher now than I had been for both of those groups. Mostly because of them. Naturally, you reflect on mistakes and attempt to right wrongs the second time around, so now that I know better, I have done better. I plan to continue to get better at my craft.

However, change is difficult. And as I see a lot of my old ways fading in the wind, I am allured by this idea of the unknown. The unknown of how well these new students will do for me. The unknown of where my career goes from here. The unknown of....well everything. Even tomorrow. But that unknown is what keeps me going. It is what keeps this fire underneath me to turn from complacency. I have never been more excited than I have been on the cusp of this new year.

So far so good.