A Milestone

A lot of folks have been asking me to blog or talk about life as a teacher. The truth is, most of the time I don't know where to begin. I spend 10 plus hours in my classroom every day, and could probably write novels about each day and the feelings that I have to unpack and sort through when I get home, that is, in between creating my lesson plans and grading papers. Without having time to properly reflect on each day in my own head, it's a challenge to try to articulate any of it in blog form and to friends.

Forgive me.

But, today it is time to blog about something incredible that happened.

A bit of background. Every few weeks, I give each of my students a reading test to measure their reading progress. The first round of these that I did felt like someone was perpetually slapping me across the face. Yes, I had heard over and over that my students may be well below grade level, but to SEE it and HEAR it in MY students is something very very different.

The first week of school, one of my lowest-level reading students tested at a "K" level. A K is equivalent to about an early second grade level?

And yes, I teach 5th grade.

So her and I had a reality check conversation, set our end of the year goals, and set our daily goals for what exactly she needed to do to reach her first of 6 benchmarks in order to meet her goal.

Today I tested her again. She whizzed passed the K, proudly read through the L, and confidently read at a solid M level until our time ran out, and I had to tell her that we'd have to wait to try the N tomorrow. She looked like she was about to cry, grabbed her goal tracker and ran out the door (with permission) to show the principal all of the growth that she was able to make in one month.

Today was the first day that I saw, heard and felt the tangible results we achieved together for all of our hard work this past month.

It has made why I do what I do so much more real.