I just realized that I don’t have any fancy way of labeling these blogs. Not that it truly matters, but I did like the way it was written in the novel The Martian by Andy Weir where each day was labeled as a Sol. Sol being the term for a day on Mars because if they were on earth, it would have been day. Duh. However, since I am not stranded on Mars, I need to get clever about what to label the posts as in a way that is both nerdy and meaningful. It also needs to make sense and connect to my prior posts. Oddly enough, this will occupy my brain for at least the next 24 hours. 

Today was another day filled with a certain level of unease at seeing students who are not being accommodated for. I have one student who has a total of 5 percentage points in one class. Not only is that not good, it’s absolutely unacceptable. I would understand if that student were one the students who never works or pays any attention to what is going on in class. However, this student approached me several times for help with his work and is known for being fully present at all times. The issue here is that his English level is so low and the content was far too linguistically complex for him. If the lesson had either been translated into Spanish or the teacher had spent more time accommodating to ensure that the student was understanding, he would have easily passed the class. Now he is going to have a grade that will surely bring down his GPA, all because his English isn’t good enough to understand the pace of the teacher yet. Honestly, it pisses me off. 

Something that also came up today was that I was dealing with students with massive anxiety who were struggling through their own testing. It’s a tough balance between getting the student to struggle through their feelings and providing the right amount of support. 

All in all, today wasn’t bad. I had a great time in EL200 and at the end of class I pulled up the Madrid game while students were studying for finals tomorrow. I was also able to help about a dozen students study after school for the economics test tomorrow. I just need to figure out how to prepare for Monday as the new quarter begins. I need to figure out who to talk to and how to push the envelope a little further toward equity for students.