What Keeps this Teacher up at Night

A few times this past week I have found myself wide awake and thinking about my classroom at hours when I am normally sleeping . Yes, contrary to some people's beliefs about my work hours, I don't often "clock out" out once the students are gone. What has been weighing on my mind? My students and their progress.  I know. Totally nerdy. Let's face it. I am a teacher. It is how I am wired.

After giving a recent common assessment to my students and completing my typical data analysis on it, I realized that many of my students didn't perform as well as I had expected. I was frustrated, but determined to figure out what happened and fix it.  I began a question-by-question and class-by-class analysis.

I quickly determined that one question was poorly written and needed to be tossed out. Students across all five classes struggled with that question. Then I realized that one particular class did more poorly than the others. I thought back through my lesson planning and teaching and realized that the day I introduced one particular skill was the same day (and I am not kidding) we had an earthquake drill, the yearly mandatory suicide prevention talk, and school pictures all within one 90 minute block. I plowed through with the lesson because I didn't want this class to get behind. I needed to go back and start over with them.

Then I started thinking about each individual student and what I could do to re-teach those skills since what I had done the first time didn't work for them. What did they need? How could I teach these concepts differently? Now you see where the sleepless nights have come in.

Now, dear reader, I am not an anomaly. My colleagues have these moments, too. We spend hours crafting lessons and when they don't turn out as we expected, we adjust. We worry about our students' progress, their financial situations, and home lives. We buy cheese and sausage, wrapping paper, and t-shirts to help our students raise money for their after-school organizations. We stay late and come early to help students who need it. And, yes, sometimes we stay awake at night and think about school.