Math and Tightropes

Goal of the week: Operation filing system. My goal this week is to find a way to get my grades filed and back to the kids in a timely manner. That has been another one of the banes to my existence as a teacher. I think that my overall goal is to have a folder for every student (already done) separated by period (already done). I want to have it so that the folders hold their work, but I haven't decided in what way. I'm thinking that the kids could put their work in the folders themselves and that way I could have nothing to do with it. I pass out the folders and they put in their work. I collect the folders and grade what's in there. I need to come up with a system that saves me time and energy because I spend hours of my life filing when I don't need to.

Today, we're going over the lab from last week to make sure that everyone understands it. I, unfortunately, chose a day to do this when I'm missing a lot of my student body due to state testing. My school is a combo school where the middle school and high school students are mixed and the middle school students are testing. That means the school is under lock down. It also means that most of my high schoolers are skipping. Oh well. We do the best that we can. I guess the rest of them will have to make up the missing information with me after school or miss those questions on the test.

The kids are stumbling on the math, despite the fact that I'm going over it on the board. I like the system that I was taught at graduate school. I'm giving them the answers and if they don't know how to get the answers then we go over them. It saves me a lot of time and only the kids that are really interested are asking questions. Those that would copy anyway stay silent. Problem solved, and I weed through them on the test for those that were trying and those that were not putting any effort into it.

I still worry about the math. I need to push the standards and have high expectations, but a lot of them are having trouble. It's another tightrope walking day.