it's been a long time coming, but we made it.

the students who put me on the highway to crazytown as tenth graders during my first year of teaching are now putting the finishing touches on their last days of high school. they are soooooo ready to to graduate from high school, and partially because of that, i was dropped right back into the fast lane headed toward insanity during the past semester. honestly, i went in and out of my dark place quite a few times this semester because of the ongoing struggles i've had with a couple of my students. but now that i am able to look back on the semester as a whole... i'm pretty pleased with how things turned out.

i made a major transition in my teaching career in january - i switched from being a special education resource/inclusion teacher to a general education english teacher. it's been an extremely valuable and eye opening experience for me. as an inclusion teacher, i was usually responsible for upholding and enforcing the instructional and classroom management expectations of the general education teacher. i fit myself in wherever i was allowed. some co-teachers gave me more freedom than others. so co-teachers were better to work with than others. some co-teachers made me want to pull all of my hair out more than others... but all in all, i suppose it was a good experience for me to ease my way into the classroom and to give additional support to the students who needed it. it was difficult for me to change gears, especially in the midst of a the school year, but i was pretty happy to make the switch. during the past semester, i have had complete control over everything that has gone on in my classroom, for better and for worse.

i can still honestly say that i've never broken down in front of my students when presented with serious shenanigans. this semester though, i came pretty freakin' close. i made a pact with myself that i would deal with all problems in my classroom internally, provided they weren't life-and-death-serious situations, of course. i have talked a big game over the past couple years and i wanted to be able to back it up by being someone who could handle the every day issues that take place within the classroom by setting high expectations and enforcing them consistently. i didn't want to become one of those teachers who writes a disciplinary referral over every little thing and make the administration regret the decision they made to put me in charge of a group of students who needed a strong instructional leader. i can't lie, i also kind of lost faith in the system when a student threatened to punch me in the face, and was completely serious about it, and then was back in my class the next day. anyway... things didn't always go exactly as planned. there are so many instances where i know i could have done better. i know that those particular instances were the cause of the majority of my headaches and that i brought a lot of my problems upon myself because i failed to be as consistent as i should have been, or to motivate my students as much as i should have, or to have set and enforced high enough expectations. when i talked all of this out with my mother she asked me, "well lindsey, did anyone die because of what you did or did not do?" no, no one died. we all came out of this semester relatively unscathed."did your students learn?" yes, they definitely did. "well lindsey," she said, "then i think you can claim at least some success." as usual, thank you, mom.

according to my records, all of my classes exceeded our goal of mastering 80% or more of the tested state standards. at least 80% of my students scored a 3 or 4 on the necessary portions of their graduation projects. each and every student has made growth towards being more proficient/advanced readers and writers. i'm extremely proud of all of my students achievements. honestly, i'm proud of myself too.

a good number of my colleagues are known complain about the students who they teach. they're stuck with those kids who have behavior problems and are low performers. they blame the students for their consistently low achievement and poor behavior, and they blame their parents for letting them be the way they are. they blame the administration for scheduling them all together in one class. in a training about the new method of evaluating teacher performance the other day, one of my colleagues said something to the effect of, "you mean to tell me that i am responsible for the way students act in my classroom?!" ummm, yeah, i'd say so. first of all, you shouldn't bother to complain about things that are out of your control. someone else makes the schedule and we as teachers must deal with it. we all do it, but it's pointless. end of story. second of all, as the instructional leaders, we set the tone. if we put in the time and effort to be consistent with our expectations of student achievement and behavior, students will in fact rise to the occasion. third, in so many instances, unfortunately, our students were not explicitly taught how to act in various situations and so in those moments we must rise to the occasion and set an example in order to show students how to act. is it a huge investment of ourselves as teachers? yes, absolutely. and is it completely and totally worthwhile as a member of a school and global community? oh my good god, yes!

as this school year comes to a close, it is of course a definite relief to me that i will no longer have to see a select few students on a daily basis. once again, i know it's my own fault that it came to this... all the same, PHEW! but instead of concentrating on any of the negativity i am left with at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, i'd much rather focus on the positive.

on this past friday, my school held our annual senior awards ceremony. as one of the senior english teacher, i was presented with the great task of deciding who would be recognized for their achievement in english. there are so many students who i would like to give awards to, but i could only pick 3. ugh. i decided that i wanted to give awards to students who probably wouldn't receive them otherwise. i know how hard it is to sit through an awards ceremony hearing the same names over and over, and never getting the opportunity to receive anything. it sucks. i wanted to try to remedy that just a little bit for a few students. the first student i chose was one of my students from first semester who blew his classmates away with his presentation skills. he's got an inherent gift to organize and articulate his thoughts and to then present them in front of a group. the second student i chose was also one of my students from first semester, and is a student who came to class with a positive attitude every day and worked her butt off to improve her writing. she has amazing ideas and creativity and has improved so much in expressing them in a written format. the third student i chose is the one i am most proud of. this student comes with a serious disclaimer. other teachers might disagree with my choice because of negative interactions they've had with this student. this student can be mouthy and obnoxious at times, but deep down i know she's really a good kid. she just literally doesn't have the coping mechanisms to deal with her own emotions. she struggles to contain herself. i can't imagine how hard that must be. in the end though, she has come so far and has made so much progress in regard to her behavior and her academics. i have taught her for three years and i have seen that progress firsthand. this student hasn't received all that much positive attention in her life. she also hasn't had it all that easy in her eighteen years. i wanted to take this opportunity to recognize her strengths in front of her peers in a positive way. she received the "most improved" award for english. her smile when she came up to receive the award made it all worthwhile.

i recently realized that i have been in school for more than twenty years - over two decades. it frightens me that i am old enough to actually say that. good or bad, i know that i'm still not done. i have another year until i finish my masters degree and then i'll eventually go back to school for my PhD, probably in urban education. during the past three years, i have figured out that my love for learning stems from the fact that i am good at it. i know how to be a good student and thrive on academic success. a lot of my students don't share this innate love of mine, and that is likely because they do not necessarily know how to learn and/or experience that much academic success. i know i can't change that for all students, but i'm trying really hard to change it for some. i try to plan engaging lessons that make the information easy to understand and fun to interact with. it's really hard to do that every day, and i can't say that i'm always successfull... but i'm trying.

one of my students wrote this about me in his senior book, "Ms. Quick, I know that our class wasn't always your favorite because we weren't always good, but no matter what you came back every day and made us learn important things that will help us in the future. I earned the highest grades on tests of my entire high school career in your class because you pushed me to do that. Thank you." that may just be one student, but it's a start.