Another Late Night

I really meant to write this earlier. I must have meant to write this earlier about a dozen times, but it just never rose above the important of finishing my lesson plans, and so here I am writing about last week at least one day too late.

This is my 6th of 7 weeks at Danville High School, and I feel like I'm almost at the finish line. I prepared for this marathon of an experience for years, and thank goodness I did. The administrative duties alone are enough to overwhelm me at times. Then, of course, there's the actual teaching.

This past week was my first five-day week where I taught all five classes: 3 algebra 2/trig, 1 geometry, and 1 repeater algebra. That's 15 distinct lesson plans, 25 lessons taught, a total of at least twenty hours of being in the spotlight. I don't know how I manage to stay up until 11pm, wake up at 5:20am, get ready, teach until 2:40pm, stay to answer questions until sometimes 4pm, come home, eat, prepare, and do it all over again. I guess all the prayers of my friends and family, in addition to my own, are working. I'm finding some sort of strength to keep going.

There have certainly been rewards. I've seen some students improve their grades... of course, I've also seen some do the opposite. Overall, I think I've made a positive impact on the students, but I don't think I'll ever know for sure. I never really went up to my teachers to thank them. I never really gave a lot of positive feedback. I'm sure some of them knew they did a good job, but I rarely told them to their faces. I heard one student at one point say "This is the most fun I've had in math this year," and those comments stick with me. Even still, I feel like the next day approaches too quickly to dwell very long on a single positive comment. Certainly, the next day approaches too quickly to dwell on a negative comment, and there are plenty of those.

As far as having an impact on individual students, there's one girl with whom I've worked after school a few times. She has a 'D' in Algebra 2/Trig right now, but she recently received an 'A' on both her quadratic formula quiz and quiz on distance/midpoint/circles. Her father passed away within the past two weeks, and I realize the effect that that has on her. Math isn't as important as family, and it can be difficult for her to focus in class. I think the extra time I've spent with her has helped, but most of the credit should, of course go to her. There's another student who I continue to try to teach lessons not related to math. He is defiant and challenges my authority daily. It's hard for me not to hold previous experiences against him, but I try my best. I wish he would realize that the sort of stubbornness he demonstrates in class by refusing to take notes, do practice problems, work in general won't fly when he has a job. Maybe he'll soften in the coming week, but I can only teach him the relationship between his choices and their consequences. He needs to receive the lesson for it to stick.

All in all, I'm ready for bed. It's late, and I need to run to the store to buy candy that I promised to the winners of our Angle Bingo game today. Ah, the joys of student teaching.