if you can't brag on your own blog, where can you brag?

i teach AP government and politics.  i love it.  i love how relevant it is to the students - it helps so much in getting them interested and excited about the course.  i love teaching seniors, who you have to shelter very little from the realities of our government and our world.  i love teaching at my school, where i have almost total control over how i teach the material.  i have bright, interested, engaged, well behaved, kind, mature, funny students.  i have a great job.  (i can say this now, a full month into summer.  i might not have said this six weeks ago...ahh, what time can do...)

all of my students are required to take the AP exam at the end of the year.  it's a national exam taken by 220,000 students every year...i teach based on concepts set forth by the exam's creators (the college board), though with a lot of liberty to add projects and movies and current events in addition to it.  the exam is scored from a 0 to a 5, 5 being the highest possible score - supposedly equivalent to an A in an introductory government course in college.

the first year i taught the AP course, i had 2 students who made 5s on the exam and 8 students who made 4s.  and i was elated.  i knew the kids were bright and should do well on the exam, and i would have felt like i'd failed them in my teaching if i didn't have at least one who scored a 5.

the second year i taught the course, i had 4 students who made 5s and 12 students who made 4s.  i was even more excited - progress!  i was getting better at teaching the course or motivating my students or i had brighter students or something.  i know the students take the test - and i can't be entirely responsible for how well they do - but i do take seriously my responsibility to prepare them well.

this year, the third year i taught the course, i was feeling good.  i felt like i was teaching the material more effectively than in the past, i had some really bright kids (though not necessarily that much brighter than in years past), but then i went to florida and graded the AP exam and i started to sweat.  i could envision what my students would write for each essay question and i found out that some things i KNEW they would write weren't specific enough to get credit.  uh oh.  maybe they wouldn't do as well as i'd originally thought.

today i got my exam scores.  and 19 of my students got 5s and 14 got 4s.  i am losing my mind i'm so excited.  19!  19!  2 to 4 to 19!  i am so so proud of them, how seriously they took the course, how hard they studied, how diligent they were.  and proud of myself for the improvement i've seen in my students.  all year i measure my success as a teacher by what i've done to make them more knowledgeable and more interested and more excited about politics, for helping them grow into responsible and respectful americans.  today i measure my success by how well they've done on this exam.  so i'm going to revel in their 5s for a minute.  we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.