Miss Bennett in the Bay

Hmm. If I could at all fathom teaching middle school, I would apply to Atlas Prep in a heartbeat.

Seriously, the only thing that would hold me back (aside from the fact that I’ve got a contract at another great school in California and I’m really excited about it) would be teaching middle school kids. Pre-teen hormones drive me crazy. We had sixth-graders on our elementary school campus this year and I couldn’t stand their attitude. Give me little, cute kids any day.

But really. If you’re into middle school and you want to go live in the best state in the union, go for Atlas Prep. It looks awesome.

Well, I did it. I survived two years as a Teach for America corps member. I still have not quite gotten used to the fact that I am now a TFA alumna.

I probably don’t have closure yet because I’m not finished moving out of my classroom. Yesterday we drove Jess’s stuff up to Oakland, today we are moving Rebecca’s stuff to downtown San Jose, and tomorrow it will be my turn to move stuff to downtown San Jose. (At least the drives to downtown are significantly less painful than the drive to the East Bay.)

Did I mention that I hate moving?

I mean, seriously. We’ve all seen Star Trek. Shouldn’t we have this “beam me up” technology by now? It feels like the moving process is never over. Each individual piece of it is absolutely exhausting, and yet you have to simply power through it or risk not getting it done. First, the agonizing days of organizing and packing. I spent so much time getting my classroom organized this year and I don’t want to have to do that again in my new room. So, I spent way longer than I needed to packing and trying to organize things into boxes by their subject area. Halfway through this venture, I second-guessed myself and wondered if I should have organized them by where I kept them in my room, namely, in cabinets or on shelves. As I contemplated this, my iPod died. This shook me out of my reverie and made me say “forget this” to the whole thing. At that point, I just put things in boxes. Half of it is organized, half of it isn’t. Oh, well.

After that agony, then there’s the agony of fitting boxes into cars. No, I am not renting a U-Haul to move my classroom across the city. I can’t justify that kind of expenditure when a) I’ve only been teaching for two years and I don’t have that much stuff and b) I have two wonderful friends who are willing to donate their cars to the cause. But still, in case you didn’t know, boxes don’t pack well into cars. And I’m not one of those visuo-spatial type people who can just see where things will fit. I have to shove things until it works.

Then, just when you think you can’t stand it any longer, you then have to drive your car, which is so stuffed to the gills you practically can’t see out of it, across the city (or the region, in Jess’s case) and do the whole thing over again in reverse. I’m honestly glad I can’t unpack anything until August. Just thinking about all of this exhausts me. At least after tomorrow it will be completely over and then I will definitely feel like I am finished with TFA. Then, I can sit down and synthesize all I’ve learned in my brain. For now, I’m heading to school yet again to finish this project.

We are in the final stretch. For all intents and purposes, school is already over; I just have to keep my students occupied for the next 5 days.

Coming into the final stretch, my students were this close to meeting the Big Goal. We only had a few standards that they hadn’t quite mastered yet, so I created this intense re-teach and re-take schedule to get them where they needed to be. Every time the class average moved above 80% for a standard, I would change the yellow or red sticker on our class tracking chart to a green. Every time, we would applaud our hard work and our ability to grow our brains.

And every time, the applause got a little bit rowdier. As the students could see their progress, their excitement at reaching the Big Goal grew. (Some of them were motivated by the fact they had learned a lot; others were motivated by the pizza party I promised them. Either way works for me.)

Finally, on Friday, we only had one more yellow sticker to change to green. My students were exhausted; we had been pushing ourselves harder than we ever had all year. An incredible thing happened: whenever a student even looked like they were going to give up, another student would jump in to motivate them. “We’re so close to our Big Goal! You can do it!” The struggling student would take a deep breath and dive in again.

Before the last quiz re-take (over multiple meaning words, in case anyone is interested), I gave my students one last motivational speech.

This is it, guys. Our last goal quiz in second grade. I know we’re tired. I know we want school to be over. But don’t give up now. We are so close to our Big Goal! You all have grown so much this year and made such incredible progress. I will not let you go to third grade without meeting this Goal! So, who’s going to pass this quiz?

They worked so hard. And they passed the quiz, of course. So, final data: overall math average: 87%! Overall language arts average: 89%! Class average reading growth: 1.5 years! (Some students grew 2.5 years in reading! Wow!)

As I got the class’s attention to change the last yellow sticker to green, I had such a swell of pride that I was almost overcome. My students got so excited that they started cheering and dancing. Then, spontaneously, they all ran to me and gave me a huge group hug. We were all giddy with excitement. It took us several minutes to calm down, but that’s ok. Meeting a Big Goal like ours warrants such a celebration. I will never forget that moment.