May '07 Blog #2: I Think I Just Made A Difference

I think that life is really funny the way that it turns out. If you would have asked me in February if I felt I was making a difference, I probably would have said, “If I am, I can’t really tell.” All my students seemed to do is complain over and over and over again. You can’t teach. I don’t understand. I’m going to fail. You don’t care. I heard these comments repeatedly. I began to get disheartened, so I asked my mentor teacher about it. She told me that all ninth graders know how to do is complain and that I shouldn’t worry, because I’m actually making them do work (something that they were not used to doing) and earn their grades. As a teacher sometimes you don’t always feel like your efforts are worthwhile, but every now and then you’ll see a light bulb go off in a student and somehow, in that very moment, you feel like all your hard work was significant.

My last day of school a student walked up to me with a gift bag and said this is for you. I asked her did she want me to open it now and she said no, just wait until you get home. I gave her a hug and told her that I was very proud of the effort that she had made over the past two nine weeks. She smiled. I proceeded to tell her that her hard work and paid off and that she passed this Biology I with a low B. I was very proud of her, because she changed her entire grade around from a B and two high Fs. I was very worried about Hope, because I had given her extra practice for everything; talked with her; tutored with her; conferenced with her mom; and sent her to additional tutoring and nothing was seeming to get through to her. Through all of these attempts to help Hope succeed failed, I began to wonder, “What else can I do to help her?” Finally, I had to have another conversation with her about her study habits and note taking sills. She seemed to be doing everything right, but I still did not see any results. As time progressed, I saw Hope get better. Just FYI this time progression included those two Fs she made 2nd and 3rd term. Hope’s progress was very, very gradual until the 4th nine weeks. She started participating more in class and asking more questions when she didn’t understand. I still wasn’t confident that hope could pull out with C in my class, grade wise she was still lagging behind. The last two weeks of school I gave an optional extra credit assignment for those falling behind. Most of my students didn’t participate in the extra credit activity, not because they didn’t NEED to do it, but because they didn’t want to have to do work to complete it. Hope completed all of her extra credit assignments and also earned bonus points for her responses in the classroom. Her final grade was a very high C, but with the help of her extra credit, her was computed to be a low B.

When I returned home that day, I almost forgot her present that was in a pile of belongings from school. I opened the gift bag and saw a beautiful pair of earrings and a card. I open the card and read its contents. In the card Hope told me that no other teacher had pushed her like I did and she was thankful that I stayed on her and didn’t slack up on her. She said that she never thought she would ever get through Biology, but she understands it better now. She thanked me for being hard on her, because she believe that she is a better student because of it. ;) I felt very gratified at that moment. Maybe I DID make a difference.