So a wierd thing happened last week. My Principal Retweeted my post – There is Always a Late Penalty. I am still amazed that my administrators take the time to read my ramblings but they do and I appreciate that. Thats not the wierd part. Nope, the wierd part is that a student approached me in the hall the next day to tell me that she had read my post – and LIKED it. I was legitimately moved. She also told me that it inspired her to finish all of her notes on time for the reat of the unit. I was even more amazed! Not that she was going to do the work but that she had taken the time to read the post in the first place and then acted on the message contained within. I have had other teachers write to me about trying boss fights or some Google trick I had mentioned but this was the first time a student had done so. Blogging has been as much a reflection on my own practice in order to improve as it has been an effort to change others teaching but this was the first straight line to student impact I have ever seen.

This student approached me again a few days later to let me know a group of classmates had been reading my post on switching to Standards Based Gradimg together. Moreover they agreed it was an interesting idea! I am batting 1000% so far! I wonder how they will feel when they get to my Retro Inspiration Series?

I am sending a blog shout out to this student and all the others at ECHS who yave read this far. Thank you.

And now 5 reasons I am thrilled my Students are reading my blog:

  1. They now know how deeply uncool I am and how ok I am with that 😉 I typed this post out on my cell phone in 1/2 an hour at 9:30 on Saturday night. Not cool. Seriously though, this blog is a reflection of my thoughts and is pretty raw sometimes. Hopefully this helps develop tgose relationships that might be strained sometimes.
  2. If they read back far enough they can see why I am doing what I am doing in class. Also they can see how much iteration and failing goes into something they probably take for granted at this point and that is all part of life. I am sure there are typos in this post…
  3. I hope that they see that I do care and that there are people out there fighting for them… Even if it doesnt seem like that every day.
  4. Maybe they will finally find that last item card that I hid in the school.
  5. Now I can have a conversation with them about my plans for next year. I am thrilled to discuss SBG with my current students as well as bring them into shaping next years game.

I would love to have some students write some guest posts on here. If you are one of those kids at ECHS reading talk to me about doing so.

No, I won’t give you XP for it.