The TAKS test is in about 10 weeks. TAKS, or the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, is our state’s high stakes test (according to No Child Left Behind all states have them). The test haunts my dreams, and I swear its name is whispered by the air vents in my classroom. Everywhere I turn, TAKS.
Sometimes I forget that I have a sign on my wall stating my class’s big goal: that all students pass the TAKS. It’s not just that I forget about the poster, I forget about the goal itself. I get caught up in the day-to-day minutia of making photo copies and managing my mess, of telling M to sit down and S to raise his hand, of making I and N not make-out with boys in my class, and reminding everyone that homework is done at home and not in the hallway before the bell rings. But if I forget that goal then I’m failing myself and the kids.
It’s hitting me now why I joined TFA, and that’s so that my students, most of whom have never passed the math TAKS before, will all pass this year. Say what you want about standardized testing, my feelings are mixed for a variety of reasons, but at least we have something to work toward and I know the level at which I need to teach at. And now every morning, when I give a five question TAKS warm-up, and half the class is getting every question right, I feel good. Really good. But not as good as the students. Because they are, for the first time, confident that they will pass. And they’re excited!
“MISS! What will you do for me if I pass the TAKS? Will you make me cookies, or cake? Will you watch a scary movie with me (they know I don’t like them)??? WAIT, will you buy me an HD TV?”
I tell them, “if EVERY one of you passes, I will buy the ENTIRE class an HD TV! I will bake you cookies everyday until Summer. I will sing!!!”
Some quick victories:
They’re really getting invested. One student, E, has a favorite game: he approaches me every morning and says “MISS, so the thing is. about my homework. well. I did it. GOT YA! You thought I didn’t do it!!!!”
Many of my students are showing up for Saturday tutorials, and they’re staying after the bell to get help instead of going to the bathroom or getting water. They’re falling out of their seats in order to get my attention when I ask for volunteers.
They’re using the word inverse, and doing proportions in their head.
M…the bane of my existence…started multiplying today. He’s one of my refugee students, and he can’t read or write, but after 5 months I’ve finished teaching him to add and subtract it was time to move on. I am over the moon! He will have forgotten what we did by tomorrow, but that’s what happened at first with adding and subtracting and now he does that really well. I’ve changed my mindset toward him and I will make sure he’s dividing by the time I’m through with him. I want to choreograph an interpretive dance based on M multiplying, I’m that happy. I’ll spare you.
M.C., my pride and joy who’s been in the country just one year, is answering every single TAKS warm-up question correct without any help. She’s speaking and writing in English, and I’m totally blown away by her. On my worst days, the ones where I’m totally unmotivated, I remember that I need to teach for for her, because she’s a sponge and I owe it to her to provide as much information as possible. She’s a model to every student at my school, ELL or otherwise, and I’m just so proud of her.
Student Coucil is going better too! The kids don’t hate me anymore, and I’m realizing that them yelling at each other in class is not a sign of their disrespect for each other or me. They’re just used to having to yell to be heard, and they have good ideas. Those same kids who make me want to tear my hair out are the first to sign up to help with fundraisers, and show up for CPR training at 8am on Saturdays. I’m getting it now. They were REALLY bad last week, and I ran to another teacher and joked “Why couldn’t I have been born a big black man like you????” He told me I just had to go to the kids and yell “BOY, I’m going to slap the black out of your face if you don’t sit down!” He made me practice it a few times, but I laughed too much and we decided that would not be the best way to manage behavior. The idea of me yelling that at a class is hilarious, not to mention lawsuit-worthy, but I also know if he did it the kids would stop messing around. Racial dynamics are so crazy, and I love breaking stereotypes for my kids. I still remember our first fundraiser, when one of my favorite girls, A, asked me to bring the white teachers over to our booth because white teachers made more money. I corrected her, of course, but that will always stand out in my mind. I wonder if students in wealthier neighborhoods think the same thing?
But I’ll stop with the victories because I have to focus on real business. I’m re-committing myself to being strict with them. If they want to mess around they can do it in another class, I tell them, because they’re not going to make the class repeat the grade. And then they shut up. And I hear them whisper “oooooh, she’s serious!!!”. I tell them I can’t take the TAKS for them, I can only give them the tools to do well, and learning those tools is up to them. I’m trying to teach them about personal responsibility, and some of them are getting it. I have to work harder with others, though. Well, I have 10 more weeks to do it.
This post is probably a big jumble, but it’s an effort to remind myself why I do the work I do and why. I hope my fellow corps members are stopping to remind themselves too, we must!
