I don't want you to think I'm a quitter

Two days til the final, and a few of our kids have entirely stopped coming to class. I won't lie - it definitely gets me down at times.

But while some have found that the additional stress stops them from coming to school or blowing off review work, others are more motivated than ever. One of my students, who continually asks about my departure to DC, told me he didn't have his packet of makeup work to get grades for the daily quizzes he missed. He asked if it would be ok to bring it in tomorrow (after the class got an extension on Friday) and I decided it was time to set him straight on what exactly the world will give him if he continues to do this.

After explaining to him that I would not allow that, and that I've already given him plenty of opportunities that he continually lets slip by, and that no, Ms. Brar cannot drive to your house tonight to pick it up (yes, he was serious), he finally pulled out the packet and admitted that he hadn't started it. I told him to work on it during our after-school review session, which he did. We knocked out the concept of changing equations from standard (Ax+By=C) form to slope-intercept (y=mx+b) form and then graphing the resulting equation. J struggled with the assessment question for a long time. He kept getting the equation right, but continuously graphed the negative slope as a positive reflection across the y-axis. I let him know that it was wrong, and still wrong, then wrong again and he kept tinkering and squinting his eyes, and staring at the equation from funny angles. After another ten minutes or so, he called me over for the vote of approval. When I told him he finally had it, his face split into the largest smile I've seen in a very long time. If I've learned nothing else from TFA, it's to seize these moments of accomplishment and praise the hell out of them so the student feels a confidence boost and wants to experience this gratification again. So I praised him. I laughed, I smiled, I gave him a high-five, and I told him I knew he could do it. It wasn't hard to do it since I was proud of him. Seeing that child smile like that BECAUSE OF MATH was seriously one of the coolest things ever. That sense of accomplishment is the only drug I ever want him addicted to.

And when it was time for myself and my co-teacher Julie to go to professional development in the afternoon, I told J to go work at the McDonald's across the street (which is basically our review office after hours) and bring back the rest of the work before I left school at the end of the day.

At 3 pm, I found him loitering the halls, ready to tell me that he had the packet. "You won't be happy though," he warned me, preparing me for the half-done packet that he presented. "It's better than not doing it at all though, right?"

I said, yeah, that was true. But he could continue working on it and get it back to me in an hour when I was leaving. That didn't seem to appeal to him, though, and I watched his face scrunch up for a second. "Ms. Brar, my mom called and I gotta go... but I don't want you to think I'm a quitter."

That caught me off guard. I knew J wasn't a quitter. He was the one who asked me if he could be president after I showed the class a clip of Obama's speech at the NAACP convention ten days ago. That Harvard comment too -- and the following argument that he had with another classmate about which one of them was going to Harvard. J never has a problem dreaming big dreams. His only problem is working towards them to make them real goals.

So I told him the only thing that came to mind. I'll look over the packet tonight to pick out where he's struggling. He has to come in tomorrow morning to work with me through his misunderstandings to set himself up to ace the final. I told him 7:30. As I turned the corner to walk back to my literacy session, I heard him tell his classmate, "Yeah I'll be here. I'll be here at 7. I'm gonna meet her at the door tomorrow morning."

Let's hope so.

~N.