Some important discoveries: Coincidental? I think not!

In the past couple of days I have made a few important discoveries regarding my students.  In no particular order:

Magic of the library:  Yesterday I took my classes to an orientation to the YOKA library.  This well-equipped and comfortable room is presided over by the estimable Ms. Duff who explained the various features and procedures of the library.  Now these boys have been a lively, even tumultuous group at times, but they calmed down noticeably in the library.  They listened politely to her power point presentation and then spent a quarter hour or so browsing the books and sitting at the computers.  Some checked out books; all looked through the shelves.  They talked, so it wasn’t silent, but there was an air of comfort and calm for the whole time.  This is good to know about them, and I will strive to re-create this atmosphere in my much more utilitarian classroom.

Thrill of creativity:  Today I gave them a brief scenario to serve as a starting point for a story they were to invent based on the scenario.  After many repetitions and  admonitions most of them got into the task of writing a story about a neighborhood of kids who had to play on a busy street.  Then I asked them to read their stories, and after a couple of them read eagerly, all of a sudden many boys wanted to read their stories.  “I’m next!”  “Can I read now?” “It’s my turn!”  It was a noisy class, but what else could it be when students are excited about what they are doing?  I was highly encouraged to see how they responded so enthusiastically to a writing assignment.  It bodes well for the future.

Heisenberg and the interpretation of standardized tests:  Today we had professional development devoted to reviewing and analyzing the standardized test scores for our school.  The goal was to begin to instruct in a way that met the standards-based needs of our students.  I had three realizations during this session:

1.  Some of my rowdiest students, whose names are already etched in my memory by virtue of asking them repeatedly to quiet down, had relatively high test scores--proficient or even advanced.  The lesson:  don’t be misled by childish behavior.  It may well come with an agile brain and good skills.

2.  I noticed that the seventh graders scored considerably higher (about 20 points) in “written conventions” (spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.) than in “writing strategies” (actual writing of paragraphs, essays, etc.).  The lesson:  they have been taught the mechanics of language more than how to write.  I would equalize this, or maybe even reverse it.

3.  Finally, on a somewhat negative note, I felt again what I always feel when spending a long time poring over test result data:  the closer you look at the data, the more significance you try to wring from the rows and columns of numbers marching across the page, the more you try to draw important conclusions from these scores--the more they become slippery or blurry (to mix metaphors).  Like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (that favorite scientific principle of my late sixties countercultural college chums), you can pull back and see from afar in broad outlines the implications of test results, but when you try to get closer to see in greater detail you will begin to impact the observation with your own interpretation and thus won’t get an objective view.  So although I got the two important realizations described above from the data we received, I ended up a little frustrated with the lack of clarity in our conclusions.

But it’s only the second week.  I like these guys in my classes, and I look forward to getting to know them better and helping them realize their full potential as scholars and humans.  That will sustain me through the year, even when the going gets rough.