What is Success?

My second year has come to a close.  I have been thinking and evaluating the year a lot the last few weeks.  For much of the year, I felt that this year was a "sophomore slump."  I had to work harder to not get as deep in my classes, my speech team moved up two divisions and faced much stiffer competition, and building relationships was much more difficult and took longer.  As the year ended, I began to realize something:

Success is defined in many different ways.

Success in Content

True, it was harder teaching the students US History this year.  Last year I had self-motivated Honors students.  This year, I had to serve as their motivation in many cases.  And teaching US History to High School Juniors in Texas means the STAAR End of Course Exam.  I spent much of the year feeling the pressure to get these students to pass this test because they do not get to graduate until it is passed.  So, I found myself giving in to the temptation to engage in some teaching methods that I felt bordered on learning the test instead of loving the content.  It is a struggle I am sure many teachers face.

If the scores reflect that my students did well, that is a success for them- but is it for me?  My number one goal as a History teacher is that my students find at least one thing to love about history.  I am passionate about history and I want that passion to spread.  When I give in to focusing on the test, my passion wanes because the time it takes to develop passion is given to time spent figuring out what the test might ask.  And if my passion wanes, the students will- at the very least- lose interest.  They will not love history like I do.  The number of students I had last year that told me how much they loved this or that about history when they never liked history before tells me that my approach based on sharing my passion for the content- not my concern over the test- works.  

I wish I felt more successful in my content- but maybe time will reveal a surprise. Perhaps success here is finding that common ground between preparing for the test and sharing a passion for the material- I plan to work on finding it.

A student is successful if they score well on their End of Course Exams because they get to graduate and maybe get an "Advanced" score.  But for me success is a student coming back and saying, "Man, I really love _______ about history!  I never cared/thought about it like that until your class!"

Success in Competition

This is probably the most difficult to measure, because we assume success is more points on the scoreboard.  Our school jumped from a 3A designation to a 5A designation this year.  Sports, Academic UIL, FFA and other Career Tech groups all encountered new levels of difficult competition.  And we all found varying levels of success.  My high school, in its three years of existence, has been remarkably successful by the win/loss standard.

But is that true success?

Just winning is not success, I say.  I feel that a component of success is character.  A team that wins, but is smug, arrogant, dismissive of opponents, and just all around jerks may be victorious, but they are not successful.  But a team that loses, shoulders the disappointment with humility and determinedly works to not lose again is successful

I am proud to say that my school is most definitely successful, by my definition.  Our faculty is actively cultivating these characteristics.  We are courteous to our opponents, and our students behave with character and integrity.  Every school has a few moments of falling short in those areas, and we are no different.  But modeled from the top leadership down, there is an attitude of admitting mistakes and atoning for them.  The Prose and Poetry coach that works with my Speech team and I are very intentional about teaching our younger teammates how to win well, and how to lose well.  It is not always easy, but we must demonstrate humility in victory and defeat.  

Victory must have integrity to be a success.

I want teams that face us to walk away hating that they lost, but respecting the manner in which they lost.  And I want the teams that defeat us to respect the grace and maturity we show in the loss.  This is success in competition.

Success in Relationships

Honors students trusted me pretty quickly last year.  We were able to ask tougher questions faster, dig deeper into discussions sooner.  This year, my on-level classes were MUCH slower to warm up.  And when they did, it was difficult for me to tell because their trust was much less overt and easy to see.

I speak to my students, and treat them, like they are adults.  My simple rule is that I will respect you.  No conditions, no qualifiers, no prerequisites.  I also promise to trust you, until that trust is broken, then it must be earned back.  Well into the second semester, I still could not tell if they trusted or even liked me.  I felt I was not making that connection, and I doubted myself.

I strongly believe that to get students to do the hard thing, they need to care about the teacher who is leading them.  You can give them difficult problems, increase the rigor, but without relationship, I just do not see success happening.  Why was I not connecting?

Now, at the end of the year, I received letters from seniors who chose to write me as a teacher that had an impact.  My students from last year wrote about the way I connected them to the material and how I made a difference in their life.  My classes this year had a handful of Seniors (US History is a Junior level course here), and to my surprise, I received letters from some of them.

One student told of how they almost quit, but because I wouldn't give up on them, they decided not to give up on themselves.  They were walking the stage at graduation because another teacher and I would not let them give up.  They sent me that email the morning of graduation.

I looked back and I realized that these students trusted me long before I could see it.  They were not expressing it because many of them are just more guarded.  They do not trust authority figures easily.  I remembered that there were students I would discipline, and yet the next day, they were not bearing a grudge, they were even laughing with and being friendly.  What had I done that made this possible?

I think it went back to the second week of school.  Everyone did poorly on the first test.  Instead of scolding them for not taking the test seriously, I asked them, "What can I do better as your teacher?"  I got good, solid, workable answers, and applied them- manner of delivery, ways to review better, etc.

That may have made more of difference than I initially thought.  I gave them ownership in the class.  I forgave them as quickly as they fell into wrong behaviors.  I made my room a safe place.  Oh, there were still discipline issues, but I pointed out that the issues were not about disrespecting me- that I can deal with- it was about disrespecting their peers.

Relationships matter.  And successful ones are built on trust and respect.

What is Success?

I am still a new teacher.  I am still learning and do not have all the answers.  I simply notice what works and what does not.  Each year is, in a way, an experiment in how best to educate students in curriculum and guide them in life.  

Some students I fail.  They don't get the attention they need, or I cannot find the best method to reach them.

It haunts me.

Some students get the good grades and pass the right tests, but I fail to make the impression on them that actually helps them in life.  I fail to impart integrity and character.

It haunts me.

Some students get the grades and pass the tests, and mature and grow far beyond the requirements of the course.  They are students that will walk back to my room next year to chat.  They are students who will hound me to follow them back on Twitter the day they graduate.  They are young adults who will send me an email or ask to get together for coffee when they are in college. They will ask me advice on classes and life.  They will tell me that something I did connected with them, and they want to be for others what I was for them.

These sustain me.

What is success?  For me, it is having more students in that last category, while diligently striving to decrease the numbers in the other two categories- perhaps with help from other students in that last group.

What is success?  It is measured not in GPA's and Commended's and Honor graduate stoles, but in students who view the world and the subject matter I shared with them with a little more clarity and the knowledge that at least there is one more adult out there that cares for them.

What is success for you?