Welcome
Hello, I am Mrs. Thompson, and I have been teaching at Rankin for a very long time. In fact, this is my 20th year with the district. I have one son, Wesley, who is going to be 13 this October, and 2 boxers, Kenzie and Sugar Ray. Oh, I shouldn't forget my husband, Mr. Thompson! Most of my student council errands wouldn't get done without him. In my free time, sadly, I hunt Pinterest for new bulletin board ideas, or teachers pay teachers for fun new units for my class. My absolute favorite thing to do when no one is bugging me, is reading. I read both adult books and many young adult books. My favorite genre is romance (I love a good book boyfriend, shhh. . . don't tell my husband!), but I do love a good fantasy book. I tend to not pick up nonfiction or sci-fi, I just can't seem to get into those two genres. Relaxation, it isn't a word in my vocabulary, but I find cricuting very relaxing. I make shirts mostly, but I can add vinyl to almost anything!
When it comes to my philosophy of education, I'm not sure exactly where I fit. I know what I believe though, I believe all children can learn if they make that choice, I do my best to make it interesting; but honestly when you get to 7th and 8th grade, you are getting into tough content. I have the same thoughts in a classroom as I do for sports or any activities, you can only get better at it if you practice. Students will write a ton in my class, they usually write a full essay about every other week, but they will be doing one draft essays at least once a week. I also believe to become a better reader, you have to read. I expect all my students to read at least 30 minutes a night or 3 1/2 hours a week. I understand how some nights get with extracurriculars.
Failure and Growth Mindset
This year, the 7th and 8th grade class will be studying a growth mindset. If you are unfamiliar with this term, it is a mindset that everyone has the ability to learn, but perhaps not at the same pace. I want students to start where they are and focus on their growth, not grades. I will not be giving out letter grades on any assignments during the quarter, they will be getting a rating out of 4 to show where they are with each individual standard for the quarter. The rating will help them gauge where they are with the standard and what they need to to do to continue to grow. My class will be full of feedback instead of grades. Instead of a 40/50 on an assignment, I will give them feedback on exactly what they are doing well and where they can improve. Hopefully, this will allow them to grow, which is my main goal as their teacher. I want students to strive to get better and learn more.
Much of the class will be self paced and much more individualized. With this learning environment students will need to be prepared to fail. Hang with me, I know I just lost half of my parent population, but please let me explain what I mean by failure.
I want to provide your child a safe place to fail, because failure is usually the best learning experience. It is important for students to learn to pick themselves up and persevere through tough problems. Too often, students come across a book, assignment, social situation that they have never experienced and the make the determination before even trying that they can't do it. Not only do I want them to learn literature, writing, grammar, speaking, and listening; but I want them to learn grit, perseverance, and confidence in themselves. These qualities are what will make them successful in life.
Failure is only possible when they can learn from their mistakes, in order to make this possible, students will have opportunities to improve on any assignment or assessment in my class. Now, I do not want you to think that I am condoning procrastination and when they don't study and they fail they can just redo it until they do well. In order to be able to improve or retake assignments, they will need to show the work they put in to relearn or review the materials they are retaking.
Finally, it is important to understand that in language arts this year, I will not accept anything until the student has put full effort into their work. The assignments will be handed back and I will ask them to put all their effort into it. If it is their best work and it is not up to grade level standards that is when I will conference and do reteaching to help them understand and retain the information.
I hope you can support the idea that I do not want to only teach your child language arts but also life skills to make them successful. Together we can help your child be successful and have amazing success in language arts as well as life.