It's been harder than I thought. I've never, ever, been called by my new "teacher name" before. I constantly have to remind myself when I'm talking to students and introducing myself, YOU'RE NOT LEAH, YOU'RE MS. SCHLECHT. Luckily, I haven't slipped up too bad yet. However, my students are almost completely incapable (despite much practice) to pronounce my name correctly. The German consonant clusters are not easy to conquer with a southern accent. We'll keep practicing, but if it doesn't get better in the next few days, I might have to be ok with Ms. S.
I started teaching this week! I have a class of 14 (supposedly) English students ranging in age from rising freshmen to rising seniors. I say supposedly because our highest attendance in class so far has been 6. Even though I'm dissappointed that the rest of my students aren't in class and are missing out on a huge learning opportunity, having small class is NICE for a beginning teacher. My students are respectful, obedient, but heavily checked out. I have yet to figure out how to go through a text and keep them engaged. I have spent the past two days so frustrated by this fact until I figured out WHY my students are struggling so much to stay in pace with me. Most of them cannot read at a level proficient enough to follow the text at the speed I read it. In fact, many of them are performing at a level that is far below what they need to comprehend the level of text which matches their year in school.
My co-teachers and I spent the past 2 days delivering different reading diagnostics and when we looked at their tests, my jaw dropped. The first section of time we gave them, I had 2 students answer a total of 3 answers between them (out of 50). The rest was blank. For most of the students, they simply gave up when they saw the text they were required to read. This test was at an average 8th grade reading level. In talking with teachers today, I learned that 2 of my students are not able to read at an even basic level, and one student has failed every state test he has ever taken in any subject.
I couldn't help but think- Here it is- the achievement gap staring me in the face through the eyes of my 6 students.
The fight is now real for me. It is not an option for my students to go through another class and get by without learning anything. I have to be a better teacher than that. The problem is, that I don't really know how. I am still painfully slow at lesson planning and feel like I'm holding my lesson together by threads when I'm teaching. I've had a total of 15 days of teacher training- not even enough to get to the first midterm of a traditional teaching course. Granted, those 15 days were jam packed full of material- but this is my first time putting it into practice. I can't help but think sometimes- why me? These students need an EXCELLENT teacher to get them up to speed, and I can't even write key points to a lesson or figure out how to explain foreshadowing. But the truth is, I am their teacher. I have to be good enough. There is no choice but to rise to the occasion and figure out how to make this work.
The past two days I've left school feeling like a failure after seeing their end-of-class assessments which show that even though I've been going through examples of setting and mood with my students for an hour and a half, they cannot write three sentences which explain specific examples of each from the text or connect the concepts together. I take full ownership of this. It is my job as their teacher to teach them! If they're not learning, I need to change my style or figure out a way so they do learn.
So, how do you teach English literature to kids who do not have even basic reading comprehension skills? I don't know, yet. But I'm going to figure it out. I have to. The trajectory of these student's lives depends on it.
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