Good grief! How do I get myself in this much trouble??? I make all these super secret plans and right about the time I have committed internally to doing something, someone walks by, asks an innocent question and B-L-A-H! There's my super secret plans out there for everyone to see. Not so super secret anymore. Now it's no more excuses and I've GOTTA do it... That's how I roped myself into that 5k... ugh...
(But I'm still kind of proud of that.)
So, today I was talking with a friend in the hallway and I asked why I hadn't seen her son in the Pegasus room. (I promise I'm not stalking the Pegasus room... it's just that they're two door down the hall from my classroom and they have such sweet adorable faces and eager, smiling attitudes and cute, light up shoes...) She tells me he's not at school yet because he's going into KINDERGARTEN this year??!!!??? WHAT!!??! He just arrived and now he's old enough for Kinder? Where the heck (See that? I'm getting ready for school-- I didn't even say the OTHER "he_ _" word...) does time go? Anyway, we continued to chat about this and that and somehow we got on the topic of report cards and grades... and she asked me what I thought of those. Well, duh! There should have been red lights flashing in my head and that robot from "Lost in Space" should have been flailing his arms saying, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" But, since I'm convinced that yellow means accelerate and not "caution", I walked right into that one and told her exactly what I do think of grades and report cards. She knows me well enough to know I have an opinion about everything... and I know myself well enough to know that if someone asks me a question, I am sure going to answer it... {sigh}
So, my intention this year is to do joint parent/teacher conferences with the student and I discussing their progress with their parents. The student will talk about their learning and how they are feeling and doing in each subject area (as well as we can distinguish between them because I like to integrate things...) and I will record annecdotal notes on what I see. I will use the form that we used in Scotland as a starting point but I'll have to tweak it to some how get our state standards in there. I'm sure I'll still have to give checks and pluses on the regular report card because that's the District policy. But what the heck is a plus? It tells me even less than a 92 or 76... Whatever they mean...
I hope parents will leave the conference knowing where their child is on the educational spectrum and proud of their incredible, genius child. But more importantly, I hope my students will feel empowered and will take charge of their learning. If I've learned anything after 20 years of teaching, it's that I can't do the learning for them.
I truly believe that kids can and need to take responsibility for their own learning and one way to do that is to begin a conversation that lets them know that they are capable. With guidance and support, kids can do A LOT! They really are quite amazing.
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