16

This was my class today, figuring out how many blog articles they had posted this year, as a class, to roomtwelve.com Good, old-fashioned chalk and calculators got the deed done - after they had all gone to their blogs and counted up their individual totals.

I was worried about competition, or even embarrassment, as they wrote down how much they had written, right next to each other, for all to see. But, as I've said before, they are a special class, and my worrying was a non-issue.

The hardest part for them was keeping track of adding multiple numbers, while everybody around them was doing the same - and sometimes counting out loud!

The total was 411 blog articles written by our classroom this year - so far. This will be their publicly acknowledged accomplishment at our monthly all school meeting. I had put it to them - what would they like me to send in as their accomplishment for the last meeting of the year? I have often come up with whatever, at the last minute, for their special moment at our assembly.

Last month the accomplishment I sent in was something like they had changed desks 10 times this year. I remember one of my kids turning to me at the assembly and saying, "That's not an accomplishment!" I shared Cameron's comment with the class today, and they laughed. He was right.

So the class decided today that their last accomplishment will read, "The students in room 12 wrote 411 articles on their blogs at roomtwelve.com during this school year."

Teaching to the moment. Real time learning. I will miss those things. And that, by the way, is quite an accomplishment.

16 more days to be a public school teacher.

An oh crud PS: I think the monthly meeting for June was cancelled - aaack! I might be figuring out how to get the word out some other way for my kids. They deserve some notice. And this is one they care about.