"School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside." - Lon Watters

Here's my rendition of the room where everything happens and of CCHS itself. 

The stark gloom of the cinder block walls is balanced by the gaudy carpet floor and numerous posters. Computers line the back wall and the wall on the right (not pictured). [Students use these computers freely before class and during the lunch period.] The perspective is from the front of the classroom where the smart-board commandeers the wall and the lesson plan. Bottom right (also not pictured) is the table where so many of these stories take place. 

"Do small things with great love." - Mother Teresa

(February 15, 2017. 12:10 – 1:45 PM)

Not every trip to CCHS screams, "Success!"

Every trip does, however, remind me that small smiles can be quiet successes in themselves.

When I checked in to CCHS, Q was out in the main foyer. "You're here! For me?" 

"Of course!" I laugh. His enthusiasm is an appreciated greeting as I head to the classroom. (I'm always there 15 minutes before class starts, so Q was between classes when I saw him hanging out in the front.)

As the clock's hands slowly turn to 12:30, the room steadily fills. There's some hushed but animated shouting, but that chaos is the soundtrack of this building. The voices aren't angry and so, in the fashion of white noise, it remains largely unnoticed. The loud conversation quickly terminates, replaced by louder angry yelling. The sound and its perpetrators crash into the classroom door.

"Don't you dare call me broke when you're living with a [expletive] in a hotel!"
The quiet chatter of the class immediately stops.
Ms. S intervenes and the loud, angry voice proves to be the sweet and intelligent T. Furious, T storms in and throws herself into the seat beside me. J and Q, also at the table, watch in amused concern. R, from the nearby table, gently comforts T, telling her not to waste her time with the boy who had called her broke. I take T's still trembling hands in my own hands and try to console her. Ms. S starts to reign the class back in when the phone rings and interrupts the challenging process. I take advantage of the moment to ask R to come sit at our little table. She happily agrees with some playful fussing. Ms. S's phone call ends and the lesson (distribution shortcuts today) begins. The teacher reads through the PowerPoint slides, points out what the students should copy into their notebooks, and writes out some example problems.
The PowerPoint concludes and worksheets are started. 
T had been noticeably agitated and distracted through the lesson (aftermath of the confrontation) and needs a little more guidance than usual (as she's often self-sustained in class). R happily makes use of my presence, clearly relieved to have me walk through some problems with her and answer her many questions. I have to push for her to try on her own and not rely on me, but, same as last week, she's good humored and willing to work. To force her to navigate the numbers on her own, I move to Q and J, checking their work and explaining their mistakes. They did well, but the conceptual questions need additional explaining. I draw out the formula, creating similar shapes around variables in the function and their corresponding values in the problem. As class comes to its conclusion, they tell me I have been helpful and they understand the material. 
T gives me a small smile as she leaves with the bell and R shares her own large smile with me as she waves good-bye.
Ms. S calls T back as she starts to leave. "Hey, T, come here. Why don't we talk about what happened?"  T immediately becomes agitated and loudly expressive again, recalling the event almost hysterically. Sensing that I don't belong in this conversation, I take my leave of CCHS for the day.

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." - R. Collier

(February 8, 2017. 12:10 – 1:45 PM)

The dreary weather has all of Athens half-asleep today.

I came and situated myself in the empty classroom at the table that was home to Q, J, and T’s banter. As class’s actual start time of 12:30 crept closer, the room slowly filled as tired but still animated students trickled in. Q sat down in a hushed huff, pulled his hood over his head and face, and laid his head and arms down at his desk. He wasn’t having it today (and with the weather today, I can’t say I really blame him). J sat down a few minutes later and T straggled in with a bag of food as class was about to start.

“Today we’re starting with a quiz. No notes because you used your notes yesterday,” Ms. S announced. The class replied with a collective groan. Tables cleared and tests handed out, I sat back and watched my three kiddos. Behind them at her own desk, R looked up at me with what might have been terror in her eyes. I knew I wasn’t supposed to help with the quiz so I mouthed an enthusiastic “You can do it!” with two thumbs up. She looked back at her papers for a few moments. Unable to idly watch her struggle any longer after another glance in my direction from those wide, frightened eyes, I walked over to her.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I don’t know how to do this.” Uh oh.

“I’ll ask Ms. S. Give me a second,” I replied with a smile.

Ms. S came over and immediately realized the mistake. R hadn’t been here the past few days and consequently hadn’t learned any of this. This quiz was equivalent to an indecipherable foreign language. Oops.

Ms. S asked me if I wouldn’t mind taking R down to the resource room and teaching her the material. No problem! I’m always down for a new adventure.

R and I wandered down to the resource room and set up shop in front of a computer. I was a stranger to her, but at least a familiar face. We talked a little bit as I looked through her notes. (I have to re-teach myself all this math before I teach it to my kiddos- I’m an English major.) She’s a sweet girl and warmed up quickly. We started with a kind of fill-in-the-blank definition sheet that the teacher had provided.

Polynomials. Okay.

Using every student’s best friend (Google), we searched for definitions, examples, pictures, videos, and similar. In sifting through various sites and discussing the definitions and then simplifying them into a google doc (see below), we brought this weird, unintelligible language back into English. From the google doc there was more discussion until we mutually boiled the concept down into a definition in R’s words. This was a back-and-forth process permeated by “Does this make sense?” “Do you understand what it means by …?” “Now explain it back to me; teach it to me.” The back-and-forth continued until each question could be answered with sufficient confidence. It was a slow but successful process, ending in a growing confidence and resolution to work more at it. (She also has the google doc to reference, conveniently sprinkled with links to helpful websites and instructional videos.)

As I finished filling out the google doc with simplified explanations and links, I asked her to start working out some problems. They were like the problems we had done while defining the degree of polynomials, but we still worked the first few together before she was willing to navigate the worksheet alone. I checked with decreasing frequency, pushing her to trust herself as her accuracy improved. I messed with her some too, asking her if a problem was wrong when it was right so she would push herself to explain it and more deeply understand. She was irritated and a little shocked at first, but laughed heartily when she realized what I was doing. We shared smiles as we learned (her learning math as I was learning to teach) and the mood was wonderfully playful by the end of the hour. I think we were both having fun with it, which is an impressive feat for polynomials, or any math for that matter. When the bell was a minute from ringing, R looked up at me and said, “I get it! Thank you!” Her smile underlined her satisfaction with herself. It was a great moment that got even better when she raised her hand for an enthusiastic high-five.

We left the resource room more confident than we entered and trekked back to the classroom as the bell dismissed class, filling the halls with students.

“I know how to do it now, Ms. S!” she triumphantly shouted into the quiet classroom. Ms. S smiled.

That’s a success in my book.

"It doesn't matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop." - Confucius

(February 1, 2017. 12:10 - 1:45 PM)

Today was a day of exponents and exponential confusion. It was also another day of slow (but nonetheless rewarding) progress.
Q and J were at my table today to suffer through a progress check. Q had been absent yesterday and claimed his absence equated to hopelessness with the assignment. I wasn't having it. 
J slowly chugs along through his paper as Q excitedly pesters him about some drama, sharing some presumably juicy gossip on his iPhone. I overhear something about a girl as I (half jokingly, half seriously) plead with Q to do his assignment. At this I interrupt their conversation. "Q," I said (he interrupts, loudly exclaiming, "You know my name?!" I laugh.), "You're probably just trouble for this girl and she's probably just trouble for you." J laughs riotously at this and Q sheepishly smiles. I let my own smile and humor ebb slightly as I continue. "Anyways, if you don't get to work, it won't matter if you like this girl or not because you won't be able to support no girls without passing this class!"
He laughs. "I guess you right." As his phone disappeared into his bag and he reached for his pencil, I couldn't help but to be simultaneously pleased and surprised. 
We worked through the twenty problems ("Twenty?!" he had cried. "Why there gotta be so many?") slowly but almost steadily. He let me push him to get the answers on his own, only helping him when he was getting it wrong. As Q's pencil furiously scribbled the many numbers and letters, I checked on J. I showed him which questions he had gotten wrong and why, complimented his good work, and made three bullet points at the top of the paper to briefly cover his most common mistakes and what he should remember to get more correct. Whenever I helped Q or J to see and then solve their mistakes, I would ask, "Do you understand why?" The answer was usually yes, but when it was no we worked through it different times and different ways until the answer was yes. At one point, Ms. S (the teacher in the classroom), came over and said, "You sound like a real teacher." Her enthusiastic smile said as much as her words.
As the class came to an end and both boys submitted their progress checks, I asked how they felt. "I feel a lot better," J quietly said, the confident young man always considerably softer in tone when discussing math. "I think I get it now, thanks," Q said, with a self-satisfied smirk. I really do think they understand it better after that hour of help. 
It's certainly an hour of mine well spent.