What A Year!

What a year this has been!

I was inspired by some of my friends to start a blog about my teaching adventures. So, I decided to actually keep up with this blog. We'll see how that goes.

So, I was the Algebra 1 EOC teacher at my school this year. At the beginning of the year I had about 80 students total in 7 periods. Two of my periods were for remediation so they only had 5 students each in them. Now before you get jealous, this meant that in some of my other classes I had 18 students. (Remember I teach at the school where many of our students are the class disrupters-talkers, non-workers, discipline problems) So having 18 of them all together for 45 minutes was a challenge. Many of my students had taken Algebra 1 at least once before, some twice. They have given up on school, have trouble with authority, and just flat out don't think education is important.

The first couple of months were rough with a principal change, many rule changes, and having three teaching positions unfilled (they were temporarily filled with IA's and long term subs). I think that most of us were just barely surviving day-to-day. We were treading water trying to keep our heads above. Most of my class time was not spent teaching math, but dealing with discipline and teaching them some pretty basic social skills. 

However, come January things were much, much better! After some rearranging of classes and other weird events my class sizes shrunk drastically. By the end of the semester my biggest class only had 7 students. I think because the classes were much smaller they got the 1-1 attention and help that many of them are craving. I had way fewer discipline problems and when I did they were to a slightly less degree than the fall. I actually had students tell me that math was fun and my class was their favorite (1 out of 8 is pretty impressive!!)

I was a little bummed out when the EOC test results came back because only 20% of my students passed it. BUT we sure did celebrate those students who passed! I had a couple of them that this was like their 6th time to take it and they finally passed! I made them certificates, gave them stars, and we celebrated. This was one of those moments that make all the terrible, awful days in the fall semester worth it! I made a big deal in all my class periods about my 20% who passed- maybe the few that were close will work hard for it next time. I also made a big deal about the students who passed my class. While some of them didn't pass the EOC, they earned the credit all by themselves and for some of them that was actually a challenge. Can you tell I LOVE when my students can find success?!?

Anywho, I hope to post soon about the coming school year and the challenges that will come with some of the changes we're having. Also, we moved classrooms again to be grouped with our departments instead of being randomly placed throughout the building so I've been working on some new classroom decorations and set-up ideas that I will share.