I teach ESOL.
Many of my kids arrive to the country 3rd grade or later...
Most of their parents work 2 or 3 jobs...
All of them speak another language.
I administer SOL tests in May, to small groups of my own students, in all subjects, even those that I don't teach, such as math.
I watch them struggle through the tests, particularly math, for various reasons.
They weren't here in 3rd grade during the focus on multiplication facts.
They needed more time on long division (and don't know their facts) but the teacher needed to keep moving.
They could solve the subtraction problem if only they knew that "difference" meant to subtract.
The hardest part to watch is how much they want to do well. And how far they've come, but still how far they are away.
At the end of May I decided that I wanted to have some of these kids for 2 weeks during the summer for 2 hours a day to try to fill in some of the holes that might make math make a whole lot more sense.
So my volunteering for July is Math Boot Camp with Miss Hein. :)
I invited 8 kids. 4 came. 4 were visiting their home country, didn't have transportation to the school, or had to watch siblings. 2 other friends or siblings tagged along on various days.
Most of my materials were packed in boxes or at the private school where I'm teaching summer school next month, so it was far from fancy.
Look at my dreadful room! During the school year my room has 45,678 more colors...
They worked really hard and LEARNED.
Fair Hill Elementary School - Yes? Kind of?
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