April 5, 2008

• Slowly Catching Up...

  Sorry I haven't been much of a blogosphere participant for the past couple of months.  As you probably know, I planned on challenging the National Boards this school year.  Surprisingly, not all teachers really know what National Board Certification is, and it's a little bit hard to explain what it exactly is (which is why I posted the link for you who are curious).  I signed up in June 2007, but I didn't start getting serious about doing the work until January-March 2008.  I turned in my portfolio requirement and I scheduled to take the computer assessment on May 28.   It's the most challenging thing I've ever had to do.  I usually study for tests and exams.  This thing is evaluative, not summative.  There's no studying for it, no preparing for it in advance.  I had to just show a lot of evidence of my teaching methods.  Only 40% pass.  I won't find out until late November/early December if I pass, or not. I pray that I will, though! Now that the bulk of National Board Certification is over, I can move on with life.

  I have a more challenging group of students to teach.  No, not so much behavior problems.  They're very mellow and well behaved, actually  It's more their motivation and desire to achieve academically.  At 5th grade, a child should be reading orally at 130 words per minute.  I have a lot of low readers, 1/3 of whom are still reading between 40-60 words per minute.  They started reading at 20's and 30's, so midyear they did make some improvement.  But this is not enough for them to be competent for middle school next year, which saddens me.  I had parent conferences all week long and I could only stress how much their kids need extra time to take reading seriously.  I guess I'm frustrated because I take their child's education very seriously...why can't they do the same? 

  Outside of work, I have started Sunday School teaching again.  I recently started teaching a 6th grade class jointly with Ate Arvi.  It's a different kind of challenge, teaching kids about the Bible and about God.  Unlike teaching math or science where the teacher can expect 75% of the students to understand and master concepts after going through a lesson, teaching kids about God is very spiritual over intellectual.  Just because someone "knows" the stories and books of Bible, doesn't necessarily transfer over to mean they know God.  God really does do all the work as far being the One who penetrates through their hearts and helps them experience who He really is to them.  They know their Bible stories and memorize verses really well.  That's good.  I hope that they'll learn to get closer to God, which is even more important.

  • 9:38 am
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