Thursday, January 13, 2011

Half full or half empty?

It's just about half way through the year. These kids who have taken up so much of our brain power, sneaking into our thoughts even when we try to focus on other things, have now been with us for about the same amount of time we've got left with them. We've had 18 weeks to dive into their little brains and teach our hearts out, and we've got 18 weeks to finish what we've started.
At this point each one of them is a glass of water- either half full of the knowledge we plan to teach them, or half empty.
This week I'm bouncing back and forth between how I view their progress. At one moment I'm amazed at how many letters Pixie has learned so far, and at the next I'm in a cold sweat because Pixie has only learned a third of her letters. It doesn't matter that she is exceeding expectations based on her disability, I still have high hopes of closing the gap between her and her typically developing peers. She can do it- look at the progress we've made! But look how far we have to go...
And look at these kids subtracting! But wait, did one honestly just count a set of 8 objects completely incorrectly? We've been working on counting all year- how is this possible? My entire day bounces back and forth between satisfaction for a job well done and panic at how much further we need to go.
I'm usually a better teacher when I focus on the positive, so fingers crossed I can somehow find the silver lining as some of my friends struggle to write their name tomorrow...

1 comment:

Kelly said...

I could've written this post myself, right down to the Pixie thoughts- I have that child in my class. So much more work to do!!!