That's My Boy!

Today during math class, I was unable to explain to students a certain concept that when I was in 7th grade was relatively easy because my algebra teacher explained it like this, "Just memorize the rule and you'll be fine." However, in today's schools it's no longer acceptable to just basically say, "Trust me. Just memorize the rule and you'll be fine." Kids today have to know the "why". During class, there was another teacher in the room and she too was stumped. After she left, I had an epiphany as to how to explain it to the kids so they'd understand it. When they went to computers I went into the teacher's lounge to find this teacher and explain to her what I'd discovered after she left. Jack's teacher was in the lounge and as I left she motioned for me to come over. She wanted to tell me about the Reading benchmark they had taken yesterday and how Jack did. Now, for those of you who have followed my blog or Jdhteach's blog you'll know that reading is not Jack's forte. He'd rather be out playing or something, so it's been a struggle for him these last few years.

Well, she started out by telling me that it was a hard test. "Uh-oh," I thought. He doesn't do really well with tests especially the hard ones. He'll give up in the middle and just start randomly picking answers. So this didn't start off well. Then she continued by telling me that as a whole, the class didn't fare well. "Well crap!" was my next thought. If the rest of the class didn't do well, then Jack didn't either. Jack falls in the middle of the class in terms of academics. He's a smart kid and an average worker (as illustrated by the work coming home in his Wednesday folders), but when he gets in his "mood" he decides what he does and does not do (as illustrated by the stack of work we are working our way through at night because he decided it would be easier to shove it in his desk than do it at the time he was supposed to).

Jack's teacher continued by saying that she got depressed when she was grading the papers because the reading passages were 3rd grade work ( 2 long passages with 18 questions covering strategies that were relatively foreign to most of them because it's not in the curriculum to go over until -- you guessed it --third grade!). "Damn!" was my third thought (it seemed to be getting worse as she went on with her description of the test). She graded several 1's (on a scale of 1-4) before she got to Jack's. As she was looking through his test she noticed that he had gone back and did his strategies like she'd asked him to do (apparently he tried to turn it in without them and she asked him to go back and use the strategies and prove his answers).

And as she graded his test her spirits rose because he was the first one in the stack to PASS THE BENCHMARK! "Yessssss! Whew!" is what I thought. He read and correctly answered question on basically a 3rd grade test!

So here's to the village that it took to get Jack to the point of success with reading. You all (including myself) have worked EXTREMELY hard to help him be successful.