Success

Success is a funny thing. What qualifies as success? What doesn't qualify as success? Is trying your best success? Or is accuracy success? What about those tricky situations where there's no quantifiable measure?
I can measure success as a teacher based on my student's scores, and gain scores from a pretest to a posttest. I can measure success as perseverance-not giving up even when I'm exhausted, when a student asks the same question for the millionth time, when that student misbehaves (again). I can measure it by my lessons-were my students engaged? Do they understand the concept? Did they take ownership of their learning? Did I talk too much? Did they not talk enough?

The list goes on and on. Wheaton students are ambitious and perfectionistic. And although I often don't classify myself as either of those things, I've felt myself floundering this semester because I do have those some of those qualities in me. I haven't defined what success is for me in student teaching-well maybe I did, but if I did, it was something along the lines of "be the best student teacher ever." Not a very achievable goal, right? And I don't think I have ambition...

So this afternoon, I took some time to define success for myself. And yes, I'm gonna brag a little. After 3 really really hard weeks, I want to brag about a really really good one.

So for me, success this week looked a little like this:
Survive 11 school days without cooperating teacher. (check)
Not only survive those days, but thrive in the midst of them by growing in classroom management, confidence as a teacher, and collaboration. (check)
Receive a compliment from the principal (check)  (okay. So it wasn't a flat out compliment, and it wasn't said directly to me. But apparently telling my cooperating teacher on the day of her return "well, I never had to go into your classroom and intervene" is a compliment.)
Teach the best lesson I've ever taught-students engaged and excited, student ownership of learning, inquiry incorporated, building student confidence, student to student discourse (check)
           Bonus point: Best lesson ever observed by supervisor (check)
Be able to let loose and be a little silly with my students without fear of losing them because of the expectations I've set for the class (FINALLY) (check)
Leave school before 4pm, feeling energized and excited to be a teacher (check)
Be 3/4 done with full time teaching (check)
Be 2/3 done with student teaching as a whole (check)

Okay. So obviously I still have a lot to grow in. I always will. I can always incorporate more inquiry. I can always make my lessons more student centered. I can always create a better classroom environment. I can always be more patient with my students. But I have to admit, today (and this week) felt really really good. But the struggle of the past few weeks made the success of today even sweeter. I can see so concretely my growth in the past 4 weeks. And that's success.