Little Victories

So much of my last few entries have been highlighting my failures, my struggles, and what isn’t going well. Let’s face it—that’s the larger part of my life at Enfield Middle. However, I’d like to take some time to bask in the few little moments I’ve had in the past week or so that have brought a brief if tired smile to my face.

First, I must say that I protect all of the identities of my students by using their first initials. It’s annoying to read that way, and it also takes away from some of the hilarity of it all, because their names are often as much a source of entertainment as their actions. Regardless, safety and privacy first.

Let’s start with A.F. A.F. is in my dreaded 8^th period. He was one of my biggest problems at the beginning of the year, and still has his moments. I used to have to send him out everyday without fail, usually across the hall but occasionally to the office. He would blatantly refuse to do work, then laugh about it, then apologize and try to make up for it when I kicked him out. He was one of two students to fail my class the first 6 weeks, and I even had to have a conference with his mother to discuss his grades.

Recently, A.F. has surprised me and almost moved me to tears with his progress. I’ve instituted a new rule in all of my classes: if you don’t finish your warm up in class or do your homework, you have to do it at lunch. In eighth period, I go around to check their warm ups right before lunch, and anyone who hasn’t finished has to bring their “tablets” (what they call spiral notebooks) with them. One day last week, A.F. didn’t finish because he didn’t understand, so he sat with me at lunch while we went over the problems. When we finished, instead of returning to the table with all of his friends, he asked for more practice problems. I was floored and excited. After practicing some more he decided to spend the last few minutes with his friends. But when I went over to tell them to clear their plates, I saw A.F. leaning across the table with his tablet open, showing one of his friends how to do the problems we had worked on. Words cannot describe how proud I felt watching him talk about math at lunch, willingly! The next day, a test day, he asked if he could bring his tablet to lunch to do some more practice before our test. He spent the whole lunch period with me and one of his friends, working problem after problem and getting them all correct. When we were going over the problems in class, he even asked to work one out on the board. He is still grade levels behind in math and needs a lot of coaxing, but to see the progress in his work ethic and his behavior was so encouraging. He hasn’t been quite on his A game this week, but I know it’s possible and I won’t give up on him.

Many, many failures today, as always, but these stories of progress give me little glimpses of hope for my kids. Bring on another day…