Turn It Over (I Apologize Ahead of Time for the Lameness of This Post)

The Mississippi Delta is almost completely flat. When it rains, there is nowhere for the water to go. It seeps slowly into a soggy soil that seemingly never dries, forming standing puddles in the streets and schoolyards that linger for days at a time. You learn to watch your step; a person can adjust to anything.

Our so-called “4x4 block” schedule has afforded me the advantage of a fresh start with a whole new group of students. It really is a lot like getting two years teaching experience in one. And while this is actually my third year of classroom teaching, this month marks the first time I am actually teaching the same curriculum over again. I have refined my teaching style a bit, tinkered with my discipline policy, and become more energized, more on top of things, more, well, happy—and in search of good ideas. So things are good. Every now and then, I even leave school on a high at the end of the day, feeling like I am actually good at what I do. Not always, but sometimes.

Well, for one thing, I have stopped worrying so much what is going to happen to me if a large number of students fail. Our principal actually told us in a staff meeting last week that he was pleased with our failure rates, that we were not passing kids who deserve to fail.

I think I also have a better group of students overall than I had last term. My Transition kids—being of a somewhat more appropriate grade level for the class—are not nearly so recalcitrant and hardened in their f-you style indolence as they were last term. And my Algebra II first block class is an absolute dream. I have so many good students (relatively) in that class that it almost blows my mind.

I stopped writing names on the board as a negative consequence. Instead, the name on the board is an honor. The kids argue and compete for it. For negative consequences, I administer a couple verbal warnings usually, and then I give a detention, which I conduct twice a week. For detention, the student has to copy my paragraph, “Respect According to Mr. A,” four times—more if necessary. It seems to work alright.

One of my favorite changes has been the way I grade homework. I used to let it pile up and then in desperation assign them all completion grades whenever I needed to have grades ready. Now I grade every homework assignment, 60% on completion and 40% on correctness. But I only check two representative problems on each assignment—chosen by me randomly after the assignment is turned it—which makes the prospect of grading them very manageable. I have gotten so I can plow through a large stack of papers with relative ease.

I continue to struggle to find inspired ideas for my teaching sometimes. Things usually go well when my ideas are good, and things go so-so okay when my ideas are a little flat.