Discovering the Passion

This past week has been so amazing!! Starting this blog has really helped me to look differently at how I teach and how I react to what students are doing. I'd like to say that everything went perfectly and I can now manage my classroom with 100% of students on task 100% of the time. But alas, that is not true. However, I have one story I have been itching to tell on the blog since this morning.

One of my 3 stooges during 4th period was in ISS yesterday. I gave him an assignment to work with a program on the computer building a bridge. West Point Bridge designer - you can download the program for free. Colleges use this program to help with engineering and designing concepts, but it is so simple a third grader could use it. What I usually challenge the students to do is make a bridge that will hold the hold of a truck for as little money as possible.

Judah, the student, was excited for the challenge. He went over to the pre-engineering classroom and constructed a well planned bridge. However, his bridge cost $400,000. I had seen students do a bridge for as little as $135,000 before, so I challenged him to half his cost- making a bridge for $200,000. He tried a few times on his own but was not successful. I showed him a couple of tricks in the program (hoping he would experiment on his own to find some other variables to change), but he did not. He tried my tricks, but got distracted by what my students were doing because he was not willing to push his envelope further to experience success. I eventually dismissed him back to ISS, frustrated that he wouldn't experiment on his own to find out how to make a cheaper bridge. I wrote to his guardians to let them know how he had tried to work on the bridge problem, but didn't find much success and since he was distracted by what my class was doing, I sent him back to ISS. I thought that would be the end of his bridge building.

I was wrong.

This morning I received an e-mail from his guardians in response to what I wrote the night before. I'll quote it because it will be communicate what happened:
"Pastor had a meeting in Denver , however before leaving he visited with Judah concerning his day in ISS. Judah was already on his computer, he is not allowed to be on the computer before supper unless it is school related. He verbalized that you had given him an bridge building assignment. he showed us on the screen many attempts to build the bridge for $2000.00 or less. He said

" Mr. Twining showed me how to lessen the price amount, how to change the type of beans, the thickness," and other things he shared with us that you had taught him, however it was not working.Judah worked on it ,He said that if you said that there is a way, it must be a way, the bridge continued to collaspe, be weak over the budget ,or something. He continued to work on it, His Sister, who is a dental student observed his bridge building as well as a friend of mine who is a School Teacher. They both know that he loves a challenge and encouraged him to keep trying to find a way!"

What a wonderful e-mail to receive to start the day! Not only did he continue working on it at home, but he also brought a netbook to school with the program loaded on it to continue trying! Part of what I wrote back:

"Yes, I will give him a chance, and yes, I believe that Judah CAN succeed at school with these challenges. Typically my goal as a teacher is for students to be able to discover these things with as little interference from me as possible. But sometimes, as Judah has experienced, they hit a wall, and so they need a little more guidance, which I will give. The difficult part is discerning when they have actually hit that wall and when they’ve just given up before they hit the wall."

When I met with Judah (before 1st period even started he came and found me), I showed him some other things he could do to reduce the price of the bridge. By 6th period, he figured it out. $195,000 - he made a bridge for $195,000. Since he is currently failing my class I made a deal with him. Last night he and/or his guardians found a YouTube video that showed a bridge designed on West Point for a bridge that was $166,000. I told Judah that if he could design a bridge for cheaper than $166,000 I would give him 15 extra credit points. That along with extra copies of other assignments for me that I gave him to do should bring his grade up to a C! :) Hopefully I can keep his attention with other projects for the rest of the class so he can get an A. I'm sure after a year of struggling in all of his classes he would be most happy with that.