Nearing the End

My experience at Shaw middle school is coming to an end. My last day is Thursday. I did not know it would be so hard to say good bye to my eighth graders. They will not be there when I come back next year! As I was leaving the middle school today, students were waving to me in the halls and yelling my name across the parking lot. I feel now that I am comfortable in the classroom and faculty lounge it is time to go!
Highlight
The past week my students have been working on their embedded assessments for their comedy unit. Today, my teacher was spread thin trying to get end of the year projects done, and left me in charge of helping the students write their five paragraph papers. My six hour school day went by really quick but I also felt that I had been writing a paper for six hours straight because I had a constant flow of students asking for my help. Even though this was tiring, I got to see the light go on when I helped. I had two students today who would write a paragraph and come to me and have me read it to make sure it was right. It made me feel good to know that the students believed in me. What I had to say was important. When I gave them the go, they were really excited to start the next paragraph knowing they were on the right track.
Different View
This experience also made me think differently about students. When you sit in the back of a classroom and observe, you tend to categorize students as the bright ones, the ones who are average and the strugglers. I was blown away by some of the writing I saw. Students who were mostly quiet, or did not participate in class activities had beautiful writing. As I went around the room and read some of their passages it would cause me to smile and compliment them. It made my day and I hope it made theirs.
New Approach
A practice I have seen my coordinating teacher do is give high fives to students who are on task or have done the above and beyond. Today I decided to adopt this. After observing the class, I would pick out the few who worked diligently all class period or those who had breakthroughs and give them high fives. I think I got a bit to high five happy and gave one student too many. By the end of the class period, his high fives were getting a little wimpy. I kept giving him high fives because his work was so good! I had seen his previous work and could see the progress he had made in his writing over the past few weeks.
Conflicting Situation
At Shaw middle school, attendance is always a problem. I saw two students today who I have not seen in about 2 weeks! I thought they had moved away. One of the students was actually bragging about having the record for the highest amount of absences. I think it is sad that these kids don’t care enough about their education to come to school. Where are their parents in this? Missing school not only causes problems for the student but the teachers too. How do teachers deal with students who are far behind while trying to teach those who have been at school everyday? One teacher is not enough for 20 kids. It is hard for a teacher to ensure success for every student.