Sunday, May 25, 2008
A day to assess students' progress
From the RoundTable blog
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Craig Hodge
Hodge has been a history and civics teacher at William Byrd Middle School for four years. He is a Roanoke resident.
The Standards of Learning test time is here. And each year, about this time, I'm asking myself if I have benefited my students. Have I done my job? Have my 120 or so students accomplished what they set out to do in the context of my classroom? Have they grasped the material I've labored to introduce to them? Have they attached meaning to the dozens of lessons, discussions and assessments? More so, will they have benefited from it years from now? Did they "get it," I wonder.
Recently, within the pages of The Roanoke Times I received my answer.
I began my school day May 15 as I have most others, perusing the newspaper while enjoying a morning cup of coffee before commuting to William Byrd Middle School where I teach seventh-grade history (post- Civil War American history).
As I read the newspaper pages, I glanced through the obituaries. I paused when I came to the death announcement of Irena Sendler. The headline on page 7 of the Virginia section "Holocaust heroine saved 2,500 Jewish kids" stopped me. Sendler's story was remarkable. She had smuggled children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and to safety during the Nazi Holocaust. I wondered if, had my students come across this story in September it would have had any meaning to them.
During the year they had learned and had been enthralled about the Holocaust. I wondered again:If my students had seen this story this morning, as I had, would they have understood its meaning. I told myself, "They did OK."
I continued with my reading. I turned the page to see an editorial, "Immigration and assimilation." Interestingly, I asked myself the very same questions. They had learned a lot about immigration and the problems it presented in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. If my students had come across this editorial in September, would it have interested them? I wondered again: If my students had seen it this morning, would they understand it. I told myself, "They did OK," and I continued to read.
On the facing commentary page I was met with a photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledging the crowd following his riveting "I Have a Dream" speech. Once again, I asked myself: Would my students have understood the significance of this photograph had they seen it in September. No. But now, in May, I reassured myself, "They did OK."
Finally, in the upper right column of the same page, John Long, a history teacher at Roanoke College, had written a column titled "Understanding D-Day sacrifice."
Ironically, I too wonder if my students understand. I'm convinced, "They did OK."
I'm uncertain how my students will perform on the SOL, and frankly I'm not so sure it really matters. For today I can say, "They did OK."
