Appreciation

Tomorrow is the geometry regents. Yesterday and today, I gathered a group that will retake the regents and got them to come in for 6 hours (3 hours a day) of review. Yesterday, I got 9 to show up, today 8 appeared. I was hoping for more but, the tutoring was only publicized through announcements and most kids (and adults) tend to ignore them. Of the 9 the showed up, 6 were mine last year, kids that I have been harassing and promising to help.

Yesterday I handed them a sample regents to do, and then reviewed many of the topics they had forgotten. I had to make them leave when the time was up. The only complaint I got was from one of my favorite kids, K, and that complaint was that he was hungry. So, today I stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way to make sure there would be no grumbling stomachs in the room. I gave them the June and August regents to work on. The kids really got it. They couldn't believe that the June test was the same test they failed. My reward came as I listened and watched K, a kid I thought ignored me quite a bit of the time, explain things and work them out exactly as I taught last year. I threw them out after three and a half hours.

Today was a light day for my department. We had no marking and almost no proctoring assignments. People lounged around, gossiped with friends and went for a nice lunch. They asked me if anyone appreciated what I did. I'm not sure about the other adults in the building but I know the kids did. Their thanks were all that I needed.

I might always be the 60% teacher because even if all these kids pass, their stats will do nothing to improve mine since none of them are on my register at the moment. No improved stats would mean no merit pay, should merit pay ever come to be in NYC. That doesn't matter. I come to work for the kids and I know the kids I worked with learned quite a bit this week. I did the job I come to work to do.

(The picture has nothing to do with the post, I just wanted to publish the red bath tub I saw in a window in Budapest. )