Okay. I'm so excited and happy about this, I can hardly stand it!!!!
First, on Friday, I was dealing with what will be my most challenging group - 25 8th graders, 7th period, English (Writing/Language Arts). I have at least 3 strong personalities in there, and a whole bunch of "wanna bes" and lemmings (followers). We're still playing for +/- HW, and I had one potential leader ask me to change his seat so he could physically get away from where he felt he'd be tempted to cause trouble! Of course I said yes, gave him a high 5 later, and sent a "Good News" postcard home.
Then Monday. I float all over the building, so my 3rd period class, whose challenging kids are responding faster to WBT were doing their thing, and I wasn't really minding/paying attention to the fact that the other teacher was sitting in the back working (her prep). At the end of class when my kiddos left, she said basically, you know, I wasn't paying attention to what you (me) were saying, but I have to tell you, your kids were so on task and focused today. It was great! Of course, I then gave all the credit to WBT and told her to check out the website. Happy dance! Of course yesterday (Tuesday) when I saw my 3rd period, I told them about the nice compliment and said if we could keep this up, we were going to have an awesome year!
Tuesday. In my building, our administrators do informal walkthroughs all the time. When they come in, they have a checklist of things the district "must see". During my 7th period class, (remember, these are the toughest group), I had the Dean of Students stop in. Now normally, I just hand her the folder I must have at all times ( or leave it where they can see it easily) and not acknowledge admins presence in my room at all. But yesterday, I wanted to give WBT a chance to shine, so I asked my class if we could show her our rules. It was beautiful! Then because our word of the day was "compare", I asked her if she wanted to see one more thing before she left, she agreed. I then told her and class that in a few minutes, we'd talk about the word "compare", and I went into Biffle's routine with "Mirror" for "compare". She liked it very much and said so. As she left, I told her I'd stop by her office later to tell her more if she was interested. She was, and I did. Joy!
Formally, I have invited at least 6 peers to check out WBT. Informally, I have been telling everyone I know or speak to - even the security guards I know all to well from last year!
Saying "Thank you!" is not enough. You, Chris Biffle, have made teaching the joy I always envisioned it to be, and my students are the beneficiaries!!!
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