Maintaining
a positive demeanor is so incredibly critical in the field of education. After
a full week of bickering between teachers and administrators, complaints
regarding standardized testing procedures and teacher grading policies, and
various other fiscal, personal, and student-related issues that seem to plague
the teacher’s lounge day in and day out, it isn’t hard to find one’s self
caught up in this drama while losing sight of the one thing that matters most:
the kids. Almost all educators (there are, of course, some unfortunate exceptions)
enter in to the field of education as optimists who really do wish to make a
change in the lives of their students. However, life in the “real world” has a
nasty tendency to strip away this warm and comforting sheet of educational
idealism and pedagogy and replace it with a heavy suit of armor, locking in
various frustrations and stagnant ideas and shutting out new concepts and many
of the joys that often go unnoticed or undervalued in education. This past
week, while obviously full of its own frustration and doubt, has also come with
a few pleasant joys, which have reminded me of why I love the field of
education so much.
In
the beginning of this week, my students were given a final assessment on the
play Macbeth, a work they have been
reading and discussing for nearly two months. Many of my students struggled
greatly with this text while many others were predominantly uninterested in the
text as whole. While we as educators are not necessarily keen on the idea of
giving final, formal assessments to students, the current state of education
has not yet reached the point of granting a teacher autonomy in the classroom
and thus, we are still forced to have a minimum number of formal, summative
assessments in our quarterly grade books. This became a primary issue for me as
an educator because, for many of my students, a poor final test grade could
spell disaster for their final third quarter grades. I administered an
assessment that I spent a great deal of time creating and ensuring would be
both fair yet challenging for my students. The results, which I were originally
expecting to be sub-par given the student engagement and investment I have seen
over the past three and a half weeks, were far better overall than I had
expected. Initially, I was skeptical and checked my math and answer keys
multiple times over. The writing of the students however, simply doesn’t lie.
Many of my students responded far more articulately and thoughtfully than I
could have hoped for while many others provided meaningful quotation examples
and superior close reading analyses that left me astounded. Granted, just like
with every assessment, there were failures peppered in with the pile of
exemplary work, but I must say that as a whole, my students’ performance was a
pleasant surprise that left me feeling accomplished. Many of my students may
not have seemed engaged, but their knowledge of the content and their critical
and analytical performance on my assessment was proof that I must have done
something right.
In
addition to this small and unexpected victory, I also experienced a valuable
yet subtle breakthrough with a particular student in my period seven inclusion
class. This particular student has often struggled in various classes before in
the past. However, based upon multiple conversations I have had with this
student, I have come to understand that he is far from unintelligent. In fact,
this student is quite bright. Motivation and student-teacher rapport has often
been this student’s greatest issue, yet he has opened up to me and shared a
great deal of his own personal beliefs and goals. I have also learned that this
particular student is extremely interested in literature. During a conversation
with him, he told me, “Yeah, Macbeth
was awesome. It’s so messed up! I’m really excited for The Great Gatsby though too. I heard it’s really good.” While this
seems like minor or unimportant commentary, it is music to the ears of a
literature lover like myself who has struggled the past few weeks with
encouraging student motivation and participation. A student, who initially was
extremely apprehensive to even speak in class, was now telling me about how
much he loves reading and how interested he is in moving on to the next text.
These minor connections and victories are what keep me, along with all other
good teachers, going. Each day must be taken one at a time and even small
breakthroughs like these help remind me of why I have chosen to enter into
education in the first place.
