I had my first formal observation today with my new principal.  Yesterday, I met with him and had my “pre-observation” meeting.  My principal asked me, “is there anything you want me to look out for tomorrow?”  And I responded with, “Well, I suck at first period.”  He laughed and told me this was normal;  assured me that it was because my students and me were still trying to get our rhythm that early in the day and it was understandable it wasn’t my best class.

So, the perfectionist that I am, I stayed up late perfecting my lesson (not in a way that was different from my normal, but let’s be honest…best foot forward for this lesson, right?!)  I was excited and ready.  I made tons of notes of all the brilliant things I was going to do in class.  It was going to be great.  Here we go!

The bell rings and I’m outside my door greeting my students.  They are getting new seats in their new teams so I had to hand them a random card that tells them where they sit in class.  Of course 40% of my students were super late so it made the start of class a little rough.  Then, my lesson did NOT go as planned (surprise, surprise…ugh!).  I had a student that was super off task that I had to prompt several times during the lesson.  Really?!  That kid could NOT figure out that Mr. Principal was in the room and act appropriately?!  Then, what was supposed to take only 15 minutes, the intro or warm-up to the lesson, took almost the whole class period.  This meant the amazing closure activity I had planned would not be relevant or meaningful to them!  I was bummed and very paranoid that I had not shown my principal “enough” of a lesson to evaluate me.

Second period bell rings.  It’s my prep so my principal sticks around a little to chat.  He said, “You’ve got to celebrate your successes!”

It was a great conversation;  positive and affirming in all the right ways.  He reminded me that success in my classroom means the student that got up in front of the class and explained perfectly how to use Pythagorean Theorem to the class;  success in my classroom means the argument he overheard two students having about the difference between intersecting and perpendicular lines;  success in my classroom means the girl that articulated so eloquently to the class how she figured out the slope of a segment.  And yeah, I didn’t get through the whole lesson but all of THAT happened in 1 class period.

He also reminded me that I teach the low-performing students.  My classes are primarily loaded with students that have traditionally struggled in math so they walk in the door already hating Geometry because it’s a math class.  He reminded me there are a slew of “intentional non-learners” that I am working with.  So, those students that stood up in front of their peers and spoke so beautifully about math are the ones who would have never done that before taking my class.  Those students would have never had arguments about math concepts before taking my class.  My class.  MY class.  I did that.  I facilitated that.  That is success in MY classroom.  It may not be pretty (like students that jump for joy at the idea of writing a proof!) but as they say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

This was a huge lesson that I needed to learn today because I feel like I fail as a teacher on the daily.  I know I’m my own worse critic and that failures can drive us to be better, but sometimes you just need an affirmation!  Maybe it’s because my definition of success and failure does not fit for my classroom.  In fact, success looks different in every teacher’s classroom.  What seemed so small to me, like a student getting up in front of the class and explaining something, was really a momentous occasion to be celebrated.

As educators, we have to find these successes, celebrate them, and then make them happen again and again.