I had the opportunity to serve on the Tekamah-Herman School external visitation team yesterday. Their school goal since 2005 was to improve mathematics achievement. The process involved talking with teachers, students, parents and administrators and looking at the data that the school collected on student performance. I asked some juniors and seniors about how prepared they thought they were to take the ACT test. I won't get into specific comments because of confidentiality, but the students did express appreciation for those teachers that made the students work hard at learning things the students felt were important. These teachers were described as giving challenging assignments, but they also made sure the students knew how to do the work and were available to help students when they needed it.
This is a reminder to educators that many students do want to be challenged, as log as assistance is there when they need it.
