Stats

It's Saturday.
I am about a week away from presenting my final senior project, and I'm sitting here crunching student data and analyzing student learning. It is one of the most invigorating things I have ever done.

As I pour over numbers, make graphs, and calculate averages I can't stop smiling. It might have to do with my Mumford Pandora station. But I know it's more than that. It's because I live for growth. Growth energizes me and gives me purpose. And now I have a palpable, obvious representation of growth.

In the past, growth has always come in a different form. It's been through Growth Group leading... watching my girls grow and learn to be vulnerable with each other. These things take time, and they cannot necessarily be traced back through what they learned in Growth Groups. However, it was still encouraging to see their progress. Working with people is hard since growth is never a steady increase... it always seems to plateau. And it's like that with school-learning too.

But today, Growth comes to me in pre- and post-test data... the English Language Learner who increased his score by over fifty percent... the quiet girl who is convinced she's dumb (who managed to only miss one point)... my two students with IEPs who struggle with writing...they both nearly aced the writing portion of my test. My whole class meeting my goal for them, and students increasing their scores by over 30 percent. This calls for celebration.

I am humbled by the way my students show me grace for my mistakes, by their encouragement and desire to help me. By their advice, "yell at us more... you're too kind" or "we like funny teachers. you're funny. always be funny" or "we don't like reading. we like video clips" or "make homework funner" or "you're doing everything right. don't change anything."

My heart is full. Of growth. Celebration. Excitement. The love of teaching. Sixth Grade.