Last night during the Global Math Department webinar, Annie made a comment that (paraphrase) "You can't only teach a (struggling) kid multiplication tables and expect that he will make progress." It's so obvious, and yet so seldom done.
Enter today. I'm in the hallway waiting for one of my admins and end up chatting with an English teacher friend. She tells me about these two American Lit books that they are reading and how she will juxtapose the two stories so that her students can answer this essential question about American literature and their identities. It sounded really cool and complicated, so I said, "Oh, this is in your AP class?" She said, "No, it's my college prep." My first instinct was to say, "But it sounds too hard for them." Then I remembered Annie's comment. If you don't give them any challenging work, they will never have the opportunity to grow, to improve.
In our faculty meeting today, we were asked to identify two or three things that we want to work on this year in our teaching. High five to TMC16, I already have a list. But I've been thinking of my own fears as well, am I shying away from doing something because it seems scary or hard? I will never grow unless I take on the challenge.
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