The Goddess Nike has intervened on my behalf. After I posted yesterday I felt so relieved that I went ahead and did 1.8 miles, which is 1 trip around the loop in which I live. While I was out there, it occurred to me that there was a common thread running through my teaching and my personal life, as is often the case. I have been doing a lot of talking with my students about setting goals. How to set smart goals and how to meet them are frequent topics of conversation as testing nears. I noticed that my students truly do not understand the connection between effort and achievement. When I asked them this past week to set their goals for their benchmark 2 test scores, almost all of them said they wanted to meet or exceed the standards. Some of them said they wanted to exceed when currently they are falling far below the standards. I askes them to write down the steps they will take to meet their goal, and they wrote about coming to tutoring, doing their homework, paying attention in class, etc. So far, no action has been taken, and nothing has changed. Setting the goal has no effect because they do not know how to make it happen. They are not motivated to put their words into action because they don't believe they can do it; and if they think they can do it, they don't believe it will make a difference.
So, I cut my students a deal. We spent class time writing down goals for the math benchmark scores and detailing the steps we were going to take to meet them. Most of the kids said they were going to do their homework and pay attention in class. I told them about my goal of a half marathon in January and asked if they thought I could do it. Of course they said no, and didn't want to tell me why because they would not be that mean to me. We talked about how I don't LOOK like someone who could do a half marathon. Then I took out my medal and said, guess what. I CAN do a half marathon. I just have to work at it. They were awe-struck. I passed around the medal, and we talked about how it doesn't matter how you look or what others perceive you to be. What matters is what YOU think about yourself. Then I separated a little corner of the white board and told them that this is where I will keep track of how many miles I run each day. If they come in and there is a number there, any number greater than one, then I will assign homework and they are expected to complete it. But if they come in and it says 0, they are homework free for that day. They were pretty game, as they don't think I will do my part. We talked about working toward meeting a goal and how important it is to think about it every day, congratulate yourself each time you take even the smallest step toward meeting it, and check your progress periodically to show yourself that your efforts are indeed producing results.
I am typing out their goals (for privacy) so I can print them in big letters, and hang them up on the bulletin board that they face when they are hanging up their backpacks and getting ready for class. We're going to think about our goals every day, congratulate ourselves when we work at meeting them, and keep track of our progress.
And now I have a date with the pavement.
