A quiet room

I made the same mistake for the 20th semester in a row. I had one student writing 3 tests (you read that correctly and can justly call me by all appropriate epitaphs which indicate some degree of pitiable condition!) between 2:30 and 4:40 and another writing a test at 4:20 in a different class while I had to submit all my grades by 5:00. I will flagellate myself later (probably I will put it off till tomorrow, actually) but first a few thoughts from the evening of the last actual school day:

At least I did get my grades done and submitted - at 4:56 to be exact :( Then I sat at my desk and tried to think in the quiet space. Learning is reinforced in reflection. Well, whether I wanted to learn or not I just needed to sit and do some reflection!

Few jobs can be as wonderful as teaching: lots of time off, meaningful work, creative opportunities daily, relational working environment, playing with technology, energetic clientelle... there are many wonderful aspects to teaching. I love the cyclical nature of teaching too. I just came off a year in which I taught general introductory biology in the first semester and general introductory chemistry (for the first time) in the second semester. Now I am looking forward to having a new chemistry teacher in the Fall and a new Physics teacher and I will focus on the biology program. So I have taught a first semester of biology and chemistry and have the opportunity to reflect on the process and progress the students and I made and now I am beginning to plan for the upcoming year. I will refine some of the things I started; I will throw out some ideas; I will invent some new strategies. This refining cycle is such a wonderful opportunity. Every year is a building on the previous year. Building with kids; building with ideas; building with colleagues and friends.

So what did my last formal day consist of? Well, honestly, I was up till 1:00 last night working on grades so I was not terribly ready for the first block of pre-algebra math. No worry, being the first period of the non-academic week, the students are not tired of movies yet so I launched a preemptive strike and showed them NOVA's "Great Robot Race" where teams compete to design and build and race autonomous vehicles/cars. It is a neat, high end application of mathematics skills since a lot of the solution was computer programming and software writing. This gave kids the chance to see where math can take them. They enjoyed it!

Then I had my last sheltered (ESL) chemistry class. Of my class of five students, two graduate to mainstream next semester and three will stay in sheltered, not counting any who join in that grade bracket. I asked the students to inventory and clean their glassware at their lab benches. Then I found out that they had a test in the following period so I abandoned the rest of my tentative plans and let them study.

Prep: In this time window I copied all the tests I will need for my foolish "last minute testing effort" after school (as I mentioned above).

Chemistry 1: I had all my students inventory their lab benches on Google Docs. I made a form and each student filled out their inventory list (see the form <http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pYJmOc3RKfn_2u5okrJ1NPQ>) comparing what they actually had in each drawer against a master list. I am very happy with the responsiblity of my students. There has not been any pilfering of glassware; kids let me know when something breaks (most of the time); they are well mannered kids in the important ways. This semester in 9th grade I have been impressed that students responsibly cleaned up after labs each time I warned them early enough to clean up before class ended. Sometimes students left a mess, but usually that was because I forgot to tell them class was almost over and they had to run. I appreciate the care they show in the lab. Today was no exception; they inventoried and cleaned up well.

Math 6: Our last test on probability did not go very well. Ultimately it was one of those assessment, which they were not adequately prepared for and the grades reflected lack of time spent practicing the material more than it did a lack of student understanding. So in class today we went over the test with each student solving the problems again. It made no difference to their grade, but was sort of a debriefing of the concepts and applications so that there was some closure to the final confusion and they could leave math class behind feeling like they were challenged at the end, but got the idea finally.

After school: Foolish madness of testing in the hour preceding grade submission. Frank was right that little changes at the last minute. A life lesson: We build our success by daily habits and cannot suddenly produce spectacular results when we have spent the preceding days and weeks and months putting of learning, shoving assignments aside for TV and internet chat, complaining about the difficulty, etc. As I watched this lesson play out in front of me it spoke directly to me. Who was it who said that our lives are the sum of the habits we build? Socrates? Aristotle? Jesus? I forget, but the lesson is writ large on my mind. As I articulated what I saw and learned to a student today who needed the following lesson I heard my own words echoing in my mind as I was teaching myself:

"You have not done a very good job recently. I think that is because you feel what you do now is not important; you believe you can easily change later to become better. That is a lie of Satan and the Devil. We are later, the person we are becoming now. And the person we are becoming is the sum of our decisions, and our habits. If we build good habits now then we will reap the benefits later (and the converse is true too!) So let's plan for the future by carefully being intentional in our decisions and habit building now."

Even as I spoke the words I knew they were for me!

And that is another lesson in teaching: Every teacher is a student and every event is an opportunity for learning. Life is wonderfully rich when we are watching for what is true, what is beautiful, what is valuable and weaving those things into our life. And sometimes we get carried away too! :)