Why I Love Teaching

Reflective Teaching Challenge Prompt #4: What do you love the most about teaching?

Today was the first day students came back to school in my school. Summer is a great time for me for many reasons. I love going to the beach and relaxing, but more so, I love reloading for the next school year. It is great to have a big chunk of time to make a plan for change. Throughout the year, we get so many ideas, but sometimes have to put them on the back burner because there is not enough time to implement them correctly. I keep a list of these ideas and try to put them all into my plan for the next school year during the summer months. I steal ideas from anyone I can during the school year and during summer through Twitter and other resources. I stole a great idea today from my former student-teacher who we hired last year and will be implementing it tomorrow...I love to steal ideas and consider it a mark of a great teacher. Although summer is great, I love the school year way more. Here are some things I really enjoyed today:

before school started, one of my students tweeted that they couldn't wait to bother me in the morning

five of my other students either favorited or retweeted before school started

five students showed up before homeroom to take pictures of their name on our AP Calculus Wall of Fame for getting a 5 in May

five minutes into my flipped class today my student teacher said "I like this"

at least one student in each class made me laugh

I have been interrupted by 4 former students on Twitter since I started writing this blog tonight

I have emails from 13 different parents in my inbox for me to introduce myself to

All of these things are great and the genuine relationships I build with both the wrestlers I coach and students I teach are worth all the hours I put in to prep, the paperwork I fill out for the state, and the meetings I sit through for the district tenfold. But if I had to pick the one thing I love the most about teaching it would be the opportunity that each individual teacher has to make a change.

When I started teaching AP calculus 5 years ago, it was the 1st advanced class that I had ever taught. Like most teachers, I had to put in my time with the low-level classes (an incredibly stupid idea that drives promising young teachers out of the profession) before I could teach the upper levels. I was used to poor self-confidence in math with those students, but I was shocked to see it was the same with a lot of our best students. When I started teaching AP calculus, the school had an AP program for 24 years and had a total of 106 fives on all tests with 8 of them coming in calculus. As May and the AP test approached, I started focusing more on the test and students getting a five. The reaction I got from my students was as if scoring a five was akin to riding a unicorn to school. "I'd be thrilled with a three" was a common response. Because fives were so rare at our school, the students thought they were unattainable. When I mentioned this to an administrator in our district, that person said "it's not like you're teaching in (_______)", a wealthy district a little under an hour away from us. I cannot begin to explain how mad I was to hear this from someone who was supposed to be a leader. I came through the same school system, with a security guard and a secretary as parents, barely keeping my 2 sisters and me above the poverty line, and I got a five on the calculus test. Why is it so hard to believe all these kids can't do the same? At that moment, I made it my mission to change the perception of our students.

My first year I had all ones and twos on the AP test. My second year, I harped on learning the math so they would do well on the test, but only had 1 four, 1 five and the rest ones. The next year, I had a huge board put up in the classroom with the names of all the fives in calculus and pushed the kids to get a five. They ended up with 6 fives that year, the most by a class at our school ever. The following year, the students saw those results and I felt the change. They saw those results and believed they could succeed too. That year, we had 11 fives in calculus and the mood began to change from "I'd be thrilled with a three" to "don't put me on the small board if I get a four" because they expected excellence. Finally, after 4 years of reinforcing belief, everything came together last year. Every student walked into calculus class with the idea that anything less than a five was unacceptable. We got 26 fives last year in calculus, the sum of the previous 25 years combined.

We went from 106 fives in 21 years to 55 fives in the past 5 years because the students started to believe in what they could do. Those numbers aren't just in calculus, they are school-wide. I feel like no matter what AP course the students take now, that they expect excellence. The students were able to build off of each other's successes and work to do better because they saw others just like them do well. It all started with me pushing a handful of students early on and it snowballed from there. Just watching these kids with expectations as high or higher than that wealthy district not too far away has made my classroom my favorite place to be. And that's why I love teaching, because my students belong in an academic discussion with anyone, and they know it.

#calculus