This was my first year having new kids after three years of looping with the same graduating class through their high school careers. While I truly enjoyed and appreciate the experience, and I think that I benefited from it more than my students did, I am starting to realize that I may have become somewhat complacent. I dearly love all of my folks from the class of 2010, but I did take some things for granted. For one, they get my sense of humor, my quirks, my personality. How could they not after having spent 86 minutes a day in my classroom for 540 days.
So, the first week with new kids has passed, and with it I have gained a lot of perspective and opportunities for self-reflection. I always spend the first week working on character building, self-discovery, understanding of expectations, and hopefully some full-on confidence boosting. I try to inspire them to want to come to class, which is a feat of epic proportions when working with 18 year old seniors at 7:15 in the morning. We did district policy changes, team and class expectations on Monday, then followed by a crash course in Goal 3 standards and 21st century learning standards and objectives Tuesday. We then wrapped it up with some learning profiles- multiple intelligences, personality profiles, learning style inventories, on Wednesday and Thursday. Finally, something new in my repertoire, an entire day of team building on Friday. I was pleased with the results. Kids left Friday with many wishes for a nice weekend, smiling, eyes shining. What more could I ask for?
Now, to plan for a full week of instruction, differentiate, and figure out how to wrangle a few wayward grasshoppers who insist on testing my limits even before the honeymoon period wears off. The three groups of kids I have are very small, which is a nice change of pace, even though it won't last long. Small classes during the fall term equals enormous classes during the spring term since all 124 seniors must take my class. Even though I have very few students who will take AP Lit, I have an entire class of 9 kids who will do it together, and they are excited. They are also the group who were unable to detangle their human pretzel on Friday. These three groups are also very diverse in and of themselves. I have several second-language learners in my early morning class. Morning classes for me tend to be kids with lower test scores, but all the same, the goal is to get all of them the confidence they need to get where they want to be, and rid them of the fears and idiosyncrasies they have about standardized testing so they can be successful despite these arbitrary, numbered labels placed on them. I really hate the look of defeat that comes across their faces when I say the word "test"- but be that as it may, it is the stick with which the state beats us, and we need to suit up and play ball just like everyone else.
Differentiation will take on a whole new role for me this term. Due to the profound differences in educational experiences of my different classes, the English Honors class I teach during 1st hour and the one I teach during 3rd hour will be vastly different. As such, my 1st hour AP Lit students will experience a more self-paced and self-led course than that 4th hour class which will be 100% AP Lit students. And of course, each student in each of these classes is coming in with individual needs, strengths, weaknesses, and dreams, so I will have to provide them with opportunities for more individualized instruction and opportunities for learning. Ugh! There is so much I want to do with them, and SO LITTLE TIME! Such is the life of an educator. Now, my Everest will be to fit ACT prep, bi-weekly fluency practice, vocabulary, grammar and writing, and a peek into the world of British Literature, blogging, podcasting, project-based learning, background knowledge building, and digital literacy into a mere 7,740 minutes.
I ended class with this on Friday:
Me: "I'd like to extend my thanks to each of you for a great, productive week and congratulations on completing your first week as seniors! Just remember to enjoy every second, there are only 35 weeks to go until graduation."
Student: "O-M-G, there are 35 weeks left of school!"
Me: "Yes, can you believe it?"
Student: "That's a lot, Miss."
Oh, grasshopper, the time will fly and you will be crossing the stage in the blink of an eye.
