One Day Left!

Life is good. One day of Institute left.

The past week has been challenging, exciting, and frustrating, but most of all, full of learning.

My thirteen students took their final exams on Monday, and the results were less-than-perfect. I would be lying if I said that my class did well, but I do not want to underestimate the good that did come of the final few days of class.

First of all, getting the final exam results gave me a chance to reflect on my whole experience here. The students that I waited for outside classrooms and dragged to tutor sessions were the students who truly shined on the exam. The students that I pushed to do extra work were the students who came in confident on Monday morning. On the other hand, the students that I relaxed expectations for did not show up. And the kids that I gave up on also gave up. I am pretty sure that this is how it works as a teacher—you win some battles and lose others. But next time I lose a battle, I want to know that I lost because it was out of my control, not because I gave up.

The good that came of the week, outside of a few awesome exam scores, was the progress my co-teacher and I made with the students the last two days of class. We taught lessons about writing resumes, choosing colleges, filling out applications, taking SAT/ACT exams, and taking other steps in order to pursue post-high school education. Our students made posters focused on the schools that they planned on attending, and I cannot explain how exciting it was to hear the students talk about their future plans. “In 2012,” one student said, “I am going to Spelman to study Psychology, and these are the things I am going to do now to get there.”

I can pretty much sum up how my life has been for the past five weeks with a thought from one of the advisors at my school. She said, “Turn up the volume of every emotion that you have ever felt. That is a day of teaching.”

Take care,
Anne Marie