That's How You Know

So state testing wrapped up this week, and now we go back to normal schedule. I actually had a lot of fun with the Hunger Games projects (it was a school-wide theme to keep the kids engaged with the material while they were taking the SBAC). For bio, the kids had to create a muttation as if they were Gamemakers. They also had to answer questions like how they made it and provide an opinion on genetic modification in real life. Some of them were hillarious.

For anatomy, they had to make a survival guide based on an arena of their choosing. Theme: How to maintain homeostasis aka not die.These kids for the most part were testing so I was not supposed to give them any new material to deal with. (In our state, students in grades 3-8 and then 11 take the new Common Core assessments. Kids in grades 8 and 10 also take the paper-based science test that has yet to be phased out, but that only lasts a couple of hours.) I was grading simply on participation, and I was surprised at how few students actually chose to lose points by goofing off.

Then I got to thinking. Why was I surprised? By and large, I teach a good group of kids, and I have been able to build rapport with them. They knew this project was a place-holder due to testing. But they did it anyway. I asked them to do something, and they did it. I realized that means they respect me. At my old job, respect was hard to come by so perhaps that is why it took me so long to understand. They may not like some aspects of how we do things, and maybe some parts of anatomy are boring, but I have earned their respect. I've built relationships with them. At the end of the day, sometimes that is all that matters.