When I was a high school student, I didn’t realize that my teachers might have agonized more about my tests than I did.

I get it now.

Grading tests is, for me, a little like watching a sporting event. I’ve scouted the competitors but there is always a bit of uncertainity. Also inevitable frustration and joy. More joy than frustration this time. All my students scored above a 50. A 50 may not seem like much to celebrate, but some of these students declined to even attempt the first test I gave them. No one did that this time around. Raising kids’ confidence levels is one of the big battles I fight. Even when they do know the material but don’t initially recognize how to solve a problem, many get frustrated and give up. J, one of my Learning Strategies students, exemplifies this. J speaks often but half-under her breath. From these murmurs, I’ve learned she helps her mom sell Avon, goes to bed far too late, and shares a bedroom with her cousin. She also has a wonderful imagination (as evidenced by her responses to some of my lateral thinking problems) and is convinced she won’t pass Algebra. I am doing my best to encourage the former and discourage the latter.

There are a lot of encouraging signs going into the second half of the year. L, who is smart and overall well-intentioned but easily distracted, told me last Monday that she was going to sit next to my desk, right in front of the board. (She also, like a lot of my students, has trouble seeing and no corrective eyewear.) I, quite happily, agreed to enforce this. Not surprisingly, she did much better on those objectives on her test. T has apparently decided that I am on his side, since he greets me in the hall every time he sees me and continues to ask questions in class. We went over his test on Wednesday. He’s got a habit of throwing out guesses without thinking, and guessed a problem right, but I still made him work through it. I explained I’d rather have him know how to do something and get it wrong than guess right without knowing why.  It’ll take some practice, but I think it will begin to stick.

I know I will miss nearly all of them over the next few weeks, although I will need the peace of a removal from the collective whole of clamoring students. “Peace on earth, good will to men” has a different face this year. I wish for these things particularly to take hold in the halls and streets of my new, small world.