"But you won!" She looked at me with a confused look for a second then I continued. " Even if you win by one, you still win. Focus not on what went wrong, but what went right. Enjoy that moment!"
A little more than 24 hours later, the teachable moment for me finally lit up.
While we must work on our weaknesses, if we neglect our strengths they will atrophy.
I teach in a class with an End of Course exam. We have data meetings where we all try to figure how to reteach the areas our students struggle in. This is important and necessary. But I rarely to never find myself pointing out what went well- when the kids got it right. Or if that is mentioned, it's a quick "Yaaay!" then back to the low TEKS/questions.
What if we are missing a chance to take our students who are doing good and move them to great? What if by occasionally offering our struggling students a chance at repeating success we tangentially inspire them to figure out what they missed on the harder stuff?
When I have students I had last year come back and visit, they will ask me what we are talking about now. These were honors students, "A" students who scored tops on their EOC's, and they often have trouble remembering the things they had so easily the year before. This hurts me. It makes me feel like I "successfully" taught students to succeed on a test, but didn't leave a lasting impression and love for the material that I desperately want to share with my students.
Students need more than just "attaboys" when they do well. They need to be reminded that they did well and the should probably get frequent chances to demonstrate that they got it right. I believe strongly that success breeds success. Case in point- that Speech and Debate team I opened with had 12 -15 people on it last year. We had some successes, and this year we have at least 30. And my teams who won yesterday are hungry for more wins.
I like to be reminded that I am good at things. It's great to hear it from people- "attaboys" are important- but actually tasting success and feeling success is so much better. And I remember those second successes better because there is reinforcement of correct and good actions from the first time.
While I want my students to pass, I do not want that to be my end goal. I want them to be more than good, I want them to be great. I do want them to love what I teach. But I really want them to realize that they are capable of doing more than they think they can.
So, when my students "get" a concept, I will try my best to not just accept that, but build on that while not neglecting the weaknesses.
Now, if I just knew how to practically do that...
