It’s almost time. AP scores come out very soon. For some of us, it feels like Christmas slowly approaching. For others of us, it feels like we can hear the footsteps of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundering down behind us. And this isn’t just for AP tests. We can have similar emotions surrounding a unit test in September too. I want to share with you a few points that will help you grow from test scores.
Analyze the misses, emote the makes
I used to coach basketball. I would use this phrase all the time. When there is a miss or a mistake or a failure on the AP test, we need to analyze it. Cold. Calculating. Honest. If you have misses in your classroom, analyze them with a technician’s mindset. What barriers prevented the students from understanding? Why was this unit worse than others? In cold analytical mode, analyze the misses.
Emote the makes. When there is a student that does particularly well, celebrate them! Send them a classroom message telling them that you are proud of them. Tie the successes in your classroom to your heart. It’s why you are in the classroom in the first place.
I over-emoted one year. I got the scores and was so happy to see that one particular student had passed. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that they would. I happened to run into the student’s mom in the store. I was so excited I ran up to her and exclaimed that I was so happy about his score! Her response was odd.
“What score?”
Come to find out later that the student was so sure that they hadn’t passed, they refused to even look at their score. I got to celebrate with mom and then later, the student. I still remember the name of the one student that passed the AP Chem test the first time I taught it. Yes, one. Becky. She’s a doctor now, so she probably passed the test despite me, not because of me. But I still celebrated with her. I did a lot more analyzing that year than I did emoting. But I grew because of it. Analyze the misses, emote the makes.
The balancing act
This is the impossible mental balancing act. Did I fail the students that failed? Or did they fail themselves? Analyzing misses will help temper this feeling, but we also need to be honest. Sometimes, what you thought was a good way to teach a topic just wasn’t. The kids didn’t get it, you went too fast, you were less organized. It was your fault. And the great thing about it being your fault, is that you can change it for next year. You have that opportunity. Take it.
But sometimes it’s not your fault. You taught it deeply, with good pacing and plenty of opportunities for practice and growth. And the kid chooses not to take you up on the opportunity. It’s dumb, I know. We stand in front of the class telling them how this matters and how they can earn college credit, and on and on. And they roll their eyes. Sometimes a failing score is exactly what they have earned. And that is OK too. I tell my kids at the beginning of the year that I am most happy when everyone gets what they deserve.
I will give you a sports example. I have a son who may run cross country this fall. The coach is amazing. She has taken the team to state 10+ times in a row. She has more district championships than you can shake a stick at. The kids love her. She is a master at workout design. On the side of my fridge are the suggested workouts for the whole summer. Six days a week. And there is a little slot for the runner to write down each day how much of the workout they did. Then they sign it and give it to her on the first day of practice in the fall. That sheet on my refrigerator is 80% blank. There are a few runs here and there. So, in the fall, when the first practice comes around, I don’t expect my son to be the top runner. He is going to “fail”. Is it the coaches fault? Nope. She set them up for success. At some point the kid has to lace up their shoes and take off down the road.
The same goes for you. Give them a top-notch plan to succeed in AP chem. Lean on your years of history and expertise. Hold them accountable. But ultimately, they have to put the pencil to paper. They have to do the work. No matter how much you inspire and cheerlead, it will always be up to them. Period.
Through analysis, hold yourself accountable to the changes in the class that you can make. But also give yourself the grace to know that it was their pencil that wrote the answers. Not yours.
So next Monday, analyze the misses. Emote the makes. And walk the tightrope that is the balance between what you can control and what you can’t.
Praying you get to emote more and analyze less.
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