After last week’s report from Deena I asked her to contribute with regular, possibly weekly, reports. I feel that other people can benefit greatly from these reports from Deena. Here is her second report:
Good morning Ben,
I started the week really concentrating on SLOW…I am thinking that I didn’t do that great of a job…lots of blank stares and a lot of confusion. So I really did try to slow down, it was hard, really hard. I have been teaching for the past 15 years and kind of not really bothering to look at students to see if they understood…I’m embarrassed about that. It’s a difficult thing to admit. My students must have understood, they did well in my classes, perhaps in spite of me. At the end of the day Monday, I was doing a little bit better. My last class seemed to be a lot more interested and focused than my first class. So hooray. Did I fail the three other classes? By the way, on Tuesday, I told classes that I would be creating a job where a student would be in charge of telling me that I have to slow down!
The last class of the day is smaller and we seemed to have bond a little more than the other classes. We’re talking 8th graders here, so I feel pretty good about having created rapport with them. A couple of students asked me if they would be taking pre-assessments for Spanish. AAARRRGGGHHH! I had totally forgotten about the freakin’ pre-assessments. I told them that yes, they would be taking a test that would show me what they knew in Spanish. Ok, you guys, in New York State, we are required to give a pre-test to show a baseline of what our students know. Then, we create Student Learning Objectives (SLO’s) to show student growth. Have I mentioned that I teach Intro to Spanish? My students know whatever Dora, or Diego, or Maya and Miguel have taught them. They know very little Spanish.
So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I gave the test, which mirrors our old proficiency exam/regents exam. There’s a speaking test, listening, reading, and writing. I have to take kids out into the hall and speak at them in a language they don’t know. They looked at me and laughed. Wahooooo! Then I gave the listening test that nobody understood. Finally, on Friday, students finished the reading and writing. I had told all of my students that the worse they did, the better and that I knew that they didn’t really know a whole bunch. Of course a bunch of the students totally freaked out and took all kinds of time to try and figure out how to write something, even if it was in English and I couldn’t grade it. They wanted to write at least 30 words…ugh!
So here’s my question for the PLC…my evaluation is based on how much growth my students show. Will my students be able to show growth when they learn the TPRS way? I have to believe that they will be able to do well…I know that I can do my job well and my score for last year was that I was deemed an effective teacher. Shocking, I know. I hate this stuff! I spent three days testing kids and not hanging out and having fun. Pisses me right off! Any New Yorkers out there that can reassure me that I’ll be OK??? Please!!!
Thanks,
Deena