Awed and Amazed

Happy Mardi Gras!

In the midst of the craziness that defines New Orleans over the month long celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras, I feel compelled to take a break and share with the online world the happenings in my classroom and to a smaller extent, my life. First of all, it is 9:17am on a Monday morning and I am blogging. NOTHING is better than time off work, case in point. In a few hours I go to pick up my brother and his girlfriend from the airport to end the Mardi Gras celebrations in the coming days and just yesterday, six visitors left our then overcrowded, but obviously rambunctious house. Not to mention I have seen Will Ferrill three times in the past two weeks from up close and afar and have about 2 giant grocery bags full of beads, cups, shot glasses, stuffed animals and glow in the dark junk people throw off of parade floats. But somehow, I am always thinking about my kids even in the midst of my week long vacation from the reality of the classroom.

So after a prolonged and lets face it, bragging lead up about Mardi Gras from me, let me get to the point. My wonderful, brainaic, perfect children! I have never been so proud of them as I am right this instant. At the beginning of the year, I was handed 20 blank slate children who did not know right from wrong, letters from numbers or pink from blue. This year I have had the privilege to watch them become socially conscious, problem solving, geniuses. Okay, obviously I exaggerate, as always, but seriously, they are so smart. I always joke with my kids when they are getting all the answers right during lessons, saying, "Are you guys secretly sneaking into Kindergarten classes without me? How did you get so smart?" This of course, they find hilarious, but lately, it is getting to the point where I think they might be. We had our second wave of STEP testing this past week and my kids NAILED it. Our end of the year goal is for all our kids in Pre-K to end the year having "achieved Pre" on this test. To put things into perspective, last year, the Kinder class started with only 5% starting the year at the "achieved Pre" stage. AKA, 95% of our kids started Kinder below grade level. Therefore, we want to change that number to 100% starting the year at "achieved Pre", which would entirely eliminate the literacy gap for our kids before they even start Kinder, with 0% starting below grade level in reading.

Without getting too technical, it sounds relatively easy right. Teach kids one year of material in Pre-K, they are on grade level for K. But, the depth and vastness of the literacy gap begins so much earlier than people realize. My kids started off so low. In fact, in their beginning of the year comprehensive assessment, they scored in the 15th percentile of all children in Louisiana in Pre-K. So, in other words, 85% of other kids in Pre-K knew more than them at the beginning of the year. And, let me remind you, Louisiana is NOT known for our quality education or high achieving students. At all. It is not like the other 85% of students are at Harvard nursery schools. We can speculate why, how and possible biases in this data, but the truth is, the gap affected my kids before they ever stepped into my door.

Flash forward to today. 50% of my kids are now at their end of the year goal, "Achieved Pre". Even better, I still have the months of March-July to get the last ten to that goal. Most encouraging, the test assesses four things: name, alphabet names, rhyming and concepts of print. 95% of my class passed alphabet, 95% passed name, 75% passed rhyming and 60% passed concepts of print. The only one who did not pass name and alpha was my new student. Even more encouraging, only 3 of the 10 who did not pass failed in more than one area. And at least 4, including T, were literally one right answer away from passing. So basically, with a lot of intervention with my new student (who knows nothing, but oh my goodness is picking up FAST), and a focused small group with the other 9 based on either rhyming or concepts of print once or twice a week, I can get them there. The hard part is over. They can write their names. They know the alphabet. They are GREAT at letter sounds (averaging about 12-15 letter sounds already). And most importantly, they are hungry to learn and eager to get to Kinder and strut their stuff.

Obviously, there is so much more to teaching than just literacy scores. Math, science, social studies, fine and gross motor skills, social development, etc. is just as big of a part of my job. However, none of these subjects are as easy to communicate and quantify, and therefore, I am left with anecdotal notes and likely flawed data to show that my kids are geniuses in basically every field. But even if their success is not as prevalent and gratifying as it is in reading, I am okay with that fact at the moment. All research points to the achievement gap starting in literacy, and if I can teach my kids success in reading, success in all subjects will come naturally. How can a student excel in any other subject without a reading foundation? How can they read the word problems in math, read the experiment instructions in science or read the historical textbooks without an ability and passion to read? Reading is the foundation and I have never been more proud to watch 20 little ones take ownership or their learning and development and get motivated to read.

Obviously, I have played a part in their learning. I have made the lesson plans, set up the centers, lead the small groups in order to get my kids to their tremendous gains in literacy. But the real credit is due to my kids and their families. I have been awed and amazed at how well my students understand the connection between learning letter sounds and realizing that is the key to reading, forming their tiny hands into a sign language "b" and saying quietly "/b/ /b/ bat the ball" when asked the sound B makes. I have been amazed at how seriously my students frow their eyebrows and repeat words under their breath, trying to determine with precision whether mouse and house rhyme. And perhaps most importantly, I have been amazed at parents. I sent home progress reports about three weeks ago and for the 10 of my students who still could not rhyme, I wrote a long note about how that was holding them back from achieving Pre and needed serious intervention. Fast forwarde less than three weeks later, and five more of my students pass the rhyming section with flying colors (10 out of 10, 9 out of 10) and four of the other five were literally one or two short from passing.

Student success is dependent on so many things. Teachers, families and most importantly the students themselves. I am so proud of my kids for the ownership and joy they are taking in learning. Even if they do not achieve Pre at the end of the year (which they will and likely more), they are working harder than any other 4 year olds I have ever met and I could not be prouder of their commitment to learning. For the first time since I started teaching, I am beginning to feel like my kids have advanced so far, and that they will be okay without me. Maybe I am wrong, but I think they are beginning to take ownership in their own learning enough, that in any teachers hands, they will be set up to succeed. And god, is that feeling gratifying as the end of the year and big changes approach rapidly. My kids are going to be okay.

So I am awed and amazed. Not at the data (although I am proud of that), not at myself (I have so much to improve on), not at my school (don't even get me started on its problems), but with my kids. They are passionate to learn and learning quickly. I sometimes sit around while they nap putting together their homework and think about what they are going to be when they grow up. You get to know their little personalities so well, you cannot help but assign them the roles you know they would excel in. I think about CH becoming president, CW becoming a pediatrician. I think about JW becoming a college professor. I think about T becoming an inventor and M becoming a computer programmer. I think of R becoming a journalist, K an astronaut, TL an artist, TM a famous comedian or actress of some sort, obviously. JWa a math genius and J an author. E a doctor, SB a teacher, SD a fire fighter, I a counselor and MB a scientist. I could go on forever, so I will force myself to stop. At the beginning of the year, almost half my class said they wanted to be a doctor. I looked at the educational levels of their parents (usually middle or high school drop outs), their test scores, their family income levels (most below 10k a year) and their social skills and worried. Now, when they tell me they want to be a garbage can man, spongebob or a power ranger, I think, you are going to be so much more.

"You cannot open a book without learning something." -Confucius