Small Step for Me, Giant Leap for My Kids

I'm about to admit something of great shame. I cried three times today.

As I explained to my friend Michelle, one of the most dedicated and inspiring corps members I've met here in Philly, it wouldn't have been three times except that I was so shocked at the water coming from my eyes each time and would react by snapping out of it and calling myself a wuss. And I am not a wuss.

Granted, I've been told by some rather psychologically-inclined and informed minds that this is a bad habit of rejecting my feelings or something. But really, it's about telling myself that tears do not solve problems. They make me dwell on more.

And that's kind of what happened. After grading my students' final exams, I almost lost it. Almost every student had around a 16 / 17 out of 29. Though I did not know it immediately, the class average was a 55 percent.

First I wanted to cry because I failed. I didn't lead them to new mountaintops and inspire them to love math and show them that they can succeed no matter what. Then I sobered up a little (figuratively) and realized that the class started at a 29 percent average. So while I may not have made it all the way up the mountain, I definitely dragged some asses at least half way up there.

Then I wanted to cry because I realized that due to pressures from my faculty adviser, who is the official instructor for the course, I have to pass everyone with regular attendance. Granted most students do not come close to having regular attendance, but even those who did aren't adequately prepared to move on to higher math. So what happens when I move them on?

In the last few weeks, I know I've inspired them. I see it in the way they tackle math problems instead of staring at them. I see it in the goals they tell me they have, instead of snickering when I tell them to think about the word goals. I see it in how those students with the most significant attendance problems stay an hour after class to do extra work or come into McDonald's to learn about some variables.

But the real danger about inspiring these kids is what happens if they fail now.

There's little humiliation resulting from failing when you're not trying. The real shame comes in from investing, working, trying hard, hard, harder than they have before and still not passing. I'm afraid that if they leave my class without the skills they need, the confidence they have built in math will be irreparably decimated by the rigor of the geometry or algebra II course they are not prepared for. And the danger of that is they may just shut off and decide not to try again.

That statistic about passing algebra I being one of the strongest indicators of high school graduation has been on my mind all day. The empirical evidence I've collected in the last few weeks supports my theory that confidence in algebra impacts self-worth in a ridiculous way (loose definition of ridiculous, obvi). So yeah, I cried a few times today.

Then I realized that I did all I knew how to do. So then I got mad. Mad at my advisers, mad at the schedule at Institute which precludes me from working with my kids more, mad at the rigid curriculum set out for us without clear goals, mad at the lack of diagnostic data that I had to work from, mad at the high school's disorganization in our first week, and then mad at myself for not knowing what to do from Day 1. Thankfully, I have some amazing friends who were ready and vocal in looking me in the eye and telling me that now, I was the one being ridiculous. Yes, the TFA model is flawed. But it is consistently improving and I should share my insight. And as far as my kids are concerned, they LEARNED. Maybe not everything, but a good amount as well as the beauty involved in solving a math problem on your own and feeling that sense of accomplishment.

After this talk, dinner, and a brief meeting with the DC crew, I sat down to put in grades and started to actually look at the grades my students had on their pretests (the few we were able to gather from all corners of the school). All of a sudden I realized exactly how much my kids HAD grown. Twenty-one percents turned into fifty percents. Fifty-eights turned into nineties. And perhaps most significant of all was what I then remembered seeing while I was proctoring the test.

D was one of my least invested students. He wasn't buying this crap about "big goals" or "changing your life with math." All he wanted was to sleep through class and guess his way to a decent enough grade to pass Algebra. He and I had some behavior issues before the midterm, mostly with me trying to get him to stop flirting or wake up (it was either one or the other, usually not both... though that would have been truly impressive ...). He got a 5 out of 12 on the midterm but what really intrigued me was the scratch paper my teaching partner found with his writing all over it. There were various messages about hating math, not wanting to do this, and a list of all the classes he passed ... followed by "Algebra - Failed."

I sat down with him and asked him how many he guessed on so I could figure out which ones he really needed to work on before the final.

"All of them."
"What?"
"I guessed on all of them."
"Wow. I mean, that's statistically ridiculous! I mean, just think about that! Ok, so first of all you guessed a different letter on each one. So you shouldn't even have gotten one out of each four right, which would be the probability you would normally get of picking the right answer out of four choices, right? Sorry, I'm just a little in shock right now. You're a ridiculously lucky kid."

He just stared at me like I was crazy. He cracked a small smile but didn't say a word.

"Alright. Let's do this. We're going to work on each of these objectives and make sure that next time, you don't need luck. You're going to get the right answer because you know it. Got it?"

He agreed. And yes, he's definitely been more invested lately, but he was still struggling with some of the basic concepts. But today, as I walked around the room, I stopped in front of him and caught my breath. He was squinting. His pencil was working furiously as he scrawled out equations all over his scratch paper as he searched for the value of x.

So maybe I haven't changed the world, or even one kid's life yet. But I've learned what I did wrong so I can be better for my students in DC. And I somehow got these kids to see some value in atleast trying math. My goal for the next two days is to show them that there is still worth in working harder. Let's see what happens.

~N.


and PS -- J definitely did not show up for morning sessions. But he did stay after school for about an hour yesterday to finish his practice test. Great success.