(For some reason, either this blogging site hates Firefox or Firefox hates this site… this post was written right after winter break but I have not been able to post it until now.)

It’s a new year, and the Class of 2010 is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as we reach the year of their graduation. All through break, I have been fluctuating between excitement and nervousness about today, the first day of the second semester. Halfway through the day, I’ve definitely come down on the side of excitement.

I pretty quickly realized I could never follow the chestnut “don’t smile until after Christmas.” Well, it’s after Christmas now, and I’m glad, because today has made me smile freely and now I can do so without feeling guilty! I can say honestly that I was (at least a teeny bit) happy to see each and every student that walked through my door today. After a long day of district meetings (and car breakdowns) yesterday, it was good to be reminded of the real reasons I am here.

Today I introduced my new public tracking system, and had the kids reflect on the big goal in relation to themselves by filling out a sheet of “five essential questions.” Some took it more seriously than others (one kid filled in “Kloe Kardashian” for the person he would most want to see him succeed…) but the bright spot of the day was third period.

The third period mastery column on my public tracking chart has the fewest green Ys (meaning mastery of an objective). As I was making the chart, I was worried that this would be discouraging. In fact, it was just the opposite. The kids right away picked up on the discrepancy—and got competitive. T was leading the charge. He has had a huge attitude change recently. For the “why” question (why is this class/my goal important?) he wrote “Because math is an important subject and real part of an individual life it teaching you how to use numbers and I really need math and this class will give you another step to learning all the math you can learn in high school” A run-on sentence, maybe, but the mindset it conveys is a major, fantastic turnaround for him. He’s still quite goofy (he spent a decent chunk of time pretending the mastery chart was insulting him, and talking back to it) but now he’s being goofy and caring about the class, not being goofy just to derail the class. It’s changed the whole atmosphere of third period.