As an educator I am always paying attention to the latest and greatest educational debates. The word "reform" is one of the big players these days. Everyone says what we are doing isn't working, we need educational reform. Things need to change, we are hurting our children. And so on and so forth. Well most of those people are right. Most of what is happening around the country isn't working. The same was true at Greenville High School. Last year after all the test scores came out our school was handed a rating of unacceptable. In part due to the math test scores.
Greenville is a rural community, there's no doubt about it. You should see the looks I get from people when I say I teach in Greenville. It's mostly looks filled with disgust, confusion, and pity, usually follow by the question "Why would you want to work in Greenville?" This bothers me so much, but I have to say after last year, who could blame them? No matter what good things go on in your school a rating of unacceptable will over shadow them all, even if we all think that it shouldn't. Something needed to change.
Below is what most people would think is a pretty ordinary school faculty picture with ordinary looking teachers. Don't you think?
What you don't know is that this group of people is so far from ordinary. This group of people is EXTRAORDINARY! This is the GHS Math Department.
We knew we had to change. We knew what we did last year wouldn't work. So instead of talking, and debating, and thinking about all the things we didn't have and would never get, we sucked it up and changed. We changed our relationships with our students, we cared about them deeply. We changed our expectations of the students and ourselves, and we set the bar as high as it could go. We changed our approach, and we taught everything for student mastery even if it meant falling months behind in the curriculum. We made all students struggling in math take an extra math class for the whole year! We spent the time needed to close learning gaps instead of just ignoring them. We tried new approaches in class and found out what worked and what didn't work. No one believed in us. We were told all year by people in the school, but the state, by outside consultants, and by the community that we couldn't do it. But we just took all the criticism, analyzed it, and used what would help us and ignored the rest. We were lucky enough to have an assistant principal that backed us up and our ideas no matter what. And she pushed us beyond what we thought we could do.
And guess what? It worked. We didn't talk about educational reform, we actually did it. Our math scores on this year's state test and all year in the classroom showed 30% and 40% percent increases in all categories. We took unacceptable scores and changed them in 9 months to not only acceptable, but recognized. But more importantly we changed our students outlook on math. They are excited about math, they want to learn more, they ask us to help them get a deeper understanding for abstract concepts. We changed the culture. And we didn't need anything fancy to do it with. All we needed was great attitudes, hard work, and the will to change.
So congratulations to my co-workers for helping our kids achieve the highest math scores in GHS history. And as my esteemed colleague Jon Erwin would say BOO YAH!
