Grade 6 Group Meeting

We had a group meeting with the grade 6 teachers tonight to discuss three students who have been performing poorly in my class. I wanted to check with the other teachers to see if the students were struggling in just my class or in other classes as well. I was relieved to see that they had issues in other classes, though I was not happy to hear this. It made me feel good that it was not just my class, so I took a little blame from myself. I started to question myself and ask what I was doing wrong or what more I could do to help these students.

In fact, one of the parents actually told me that his daughter only struggles in math. I guess I also wanted to cover my butt on this issue as well. I have been keeping detailed notes on these three students, when they forget assignments or books, when they misbehave, anything that will help me later. I really don't want to get caught with a parent blaming me for their childs failures. Its sounds like the principal is going to be supportive of the grades we are assigning to the students. We also discussed testing, modifications and other options for these students as well as others.

Overall, I was very pleased with the meeting. I came away feeling better about myself and my abilities to educate. I still feel I need more experience. I sometimes find my students appear bored in class and I am having a difficult time creating exciting lessons for them that will also cover the material that needs to be covered. It is also hard for me to explain some of the concepts in various ways so all the students can understand. I feel this is in part due to the lower levels of math I am teaching. Honestly, I believe I would feel that I am succeeding and performing better as a teacher in higher level math classes.

For now, I will simply have to teach what courses are assigned to me and roll with the punches.

Aaron