Weekend Update

Last week ended with a big up and a big down.

Report card grades were due Friday, which meant that I spent all Thursday afternoon and early evening making sure all the grades were plugged in online and were averaged correctly. I decided to just stay at school late to take care of it all since the Theater Arts department was having its Winter performance Thursday night and many of my students were in the show.

It was a good thing I decided to stay for the show Thursday night because if I would have just left after calculating grades I might have quit the next day (okay, not really).

Turns out, even after I had made it impossibly easy for students to turn in their missing work so as not to receive zeros, many still did not turn the work in, and consequently received many zeros. I had a significant number of students fail Science and twice as many fail Social Studies. I was mortified when I looked at the numbers. Was it really possible that I allowed the situation to get this far out of hand?

It would be easy to blame my students, labeling them as lazy and incompetent, but that wouldn't be fair. The truth is, the responsibility remains with me. It's my job to get them motivated about their work and about succeeding in my classes. The numbers I saw last week only served to show me that my students are no more motivated to complete work than they were before I came to Miller; that it is really I who should receive a failing grade right now.

I was really upset with myself, but decided to go to the play anyway. I'm glad I did because it turns out I had 9 students in the play (out of the 13 in the cast) and they were hilarious! One of the plays was about an elf rebellion and the other had something to do with the Christmas spirit, though I still can't quite figure it out. Regardless, it really made my students feel special to see that I had stayed and really gave me perspective seeing them in a different light.

I was so proud of all my students on stage - they did such an amazing job. One of my students in particular, Anthony, who has ADHD and very rarely sits down in class did an amazing job as the lead male in the elf rebellion play. He really stole the show and I could tell he was proud of himself - a feeling I know he doesn't have very often.

After the play, I made sure to wait outside the "cast party" in the Theater Arts room so that I could talk to each of my students. Each of them was so happy and surprised to see me and I could tell that I really helped to make their night special.

As I walked back to my classroom to gather my things and leave, one of my students yelled at me from the other end of the building where the play had taken place. "MR. WILSON! Thanks for coming. See you tomorrow!"

She does not know this, but at that moment Damiya re-inspired me to commit my entire being to achieving significant gains in my classroom.