Is it me…

This year has been a really busy school year (my excuse for not blogging since August). I got married (eeee!) moved cities, as well as started a new grade and division. Lots of change, lots of new, lots of exciting. I have a group of ladies I connect with on Twitter and we call ourself #plngelato (because we are teachers that support each other and we all love delicious gelato). We have a challenge to blog once a month (better late then never) and this is my December edition.

My husband is great for being honest and pushing me to be all that I can be. We were having a conversation the other day about how I am much more relaxed now  as opposed to at the start of the school year. He said to me, “You know it was more about you when you were stressed and tired then it was about the kids”. My first reaction was to berate him and tell him that he doesn’t know what it’s like and how difficult my class is… instead I took a deep breath and thought about his comment. Was it me? It was… I was trying to move mountains and push my students and myself beyond what we were capable of. I was expecting too much from myself and from my students which caused me to constantly be disappointed, frustrated and exhausted.

I am sure many other teachers out there would want to smack me if I say “it’s you, not your students” so I won’t :). I just want to share with you my experience.

The school I taught in for the past 3 years was a bit of an anomaly. All students who were in grade 4, were achieving at the grade 4 level or higher. This is not the norm in most schools, nor is it my experience this year. In September of this year (at my new school) I was teaching as if all students were at the same level, I was expecting all students to listen and work hard. I forgot that each student is an individual and I needed to treat them as such. I forgot that as teachers, we need to start where the students are and work from there. I wouldn’t walk into a grade 1 class and expect them all to understand calculus, that would be unrealistic, so why was I expecting grade 4 level work out of students who were struggling? It’s a much smaller extreme, but still a fault of the teacher. I was worried that it would reflect poorly on me if I wasn’t hitting all the curriculum outcomes, but as my teaching partner told me “You have to reach them where they are, not where they are supposed to be”.

After a month and a half of beating my head against a wall I started to change. Not necessarily intentionally, but I started to change the way that I was looking at student needs. I use a spelling program (that my amazing teaching partner Adrienne Zenko showed me) that differentiates learning for all students. Each student gets words at their own level (as determined by the program) and they sort the words into meaningful groups which allows them to learn word patterns. I noticed that students were engaged during the time when they were doing spelling practice. Students were actually focused and would ask to create new and inventive ways to practice their words. What was the difference between this and the other activities I was asking them to do? It was at their level. They were capable of working independently and were seeing success.

Another area that I saw success was in math. I use an amazing math program called JUMP math which goes through each concept in very small incremental steps, allowing students to fly through the parts that make sense to them or get extra support for the sections they are struggling with. There is also enrichment for students who are understanding that concept and would like to explore the topic in more depth and breadth. As with the spelling program, students were achieving at their own level, they were independent and were experiencing success.

As January fast approaches, I feel it is time to make a resolution. In 2015 I will treat each student as individuals and make sure that they can all experience success at their own level. I will not take where they are working now as a reflection on me as a teacher, instead I will measure their success through the progress they make this year.

What is your New Years Resolution for your teaching practice?