Room 317 - Perseverance

Happy New Year!

This month in Room 317 we defined perseverance, applied it to our core subjects and the recent data from our district testing.  While the reality of our current data was shocking, I feel it really deepened the understanding of why we need to persevere when, at this point of the school year, we may want to give up.

In December, my students took a district assessment, Galileo, in the areas of reading, math and science.  As a teacher it is my responsibility to share students data with students and their parents in an effort to keep them apprised on their understanding of third grade content.  While their math and science data was very promising, the students’ English Language Arts (ELAS) data showed an area of concern.

During a class meeting, I shared with the students that our current data shows only 11 students moving on to the 4th grade in May.  Then, I explained in detail that students were required to receive partially proficient, proficient, or highly proficient in order to move on.  Here in Arizona, we call this our Move on When Reading law.  What is it that we need to do?  This was our introduction to perseverance.

After watching the video, students said we needed to persevere.  Then they decided how they would persevere in the area of ELAS.  It was determined that we needed to do a few things in order to show comprehension of our work.
We need to:
• clarify our text to ensure comprehension.
• locate evidence to support our answer by highlighting or underlining.
• ask questions when we are confused.
• persevere when we don’t understand.
Additionally, we began identifying examples and non-examples that show we are persevering.

Throughout all of our content areas, we worked to persevere when it got tough.  During math, we began our fraction unit.  As we struggling placing the fractions on a number line and determining equivalency, I asked if we were persevering.  I asked what we should do differently in order to understand.  As we discussed, the great Chicago fire during our ELAS/Social Studies time, I wondered aloud if the residents of Chicago persevered through their trials and tribulations.

As January progressed, no matter what we did, we related it back to the character trait of persevering.  P.E.?  We can persevere in learning how to dribble the basketball.  PlayWorks?  We can persevere in learning our to play the game.  Science?  We can persevere in cleaning up after our crayfish.  Students truly learned that we could persevere in all aspects of school and life.