Last Monday was the first day that I actually felt like a real teacher–that is, that my students were actually smarter walking out of my class than they were when they walked in.

It’s probably bad that it took me two weeks to get to that point, but I’m glad that it finally happened.  I explained the new material, I showed them what I wanted them to do, and then I let them try it out in pairs.  We were working on converting fractions, decimals, percents, and ratios, and they worked in pairs to fill out a table:  Given a fraction, what is that number expressed as a decimal?  As a percent?  As a ratio?  Given a percent, what is that number expressed as a decimal?  As a fraction?  As a ratio?  Etc, ad nauseum.  But almost everyone was working diligently.  They really seemed to get it, as well–even the students who usually make trouble were doing well.

Tuesday was the exact antithesis of Monday’s successes–it was just bad, from start to finish.

Wednesday was an improvement, though–day #2 of actual teaching.  We worked on proportions–emphasizing on setting up proportions from word problems.  Again, most of the students were working.  Most of the students actually tried, and actually answered questions correctly.  Their thought processes aligned with the questions I told them to ask themselves when setting up proportions.  Not everyone got it, and not everyone was really on task, but we’re getting better, which is important.

Thursday was a quiz, and that took up most of the class.  There were a few students, though, that didn’t seem to be trying.  One, in particular, seems to understand that when she talks, she doesn’t learn:

“Miss, I don’t get this”

“Read the question and do your best to answer.  We went over it yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I was talking.”

But even though we’ve been through that conversation many times, it doesn’t ever result in less talking during class.  And even though hers is one of the names I say the most, to bring attention back to the front of the room, it never seems to last.

For this coming week, I’d like to have more “real teacher” days.  It would be kind of cool to actually leave my students prepared for the 7th grade.