We’ve had this silly little tradition in my room that when a student earns an A on a major assessment, I hand it back with a yellow post-it note on it. Then if the student chooses, they sign the post-it and stick it on the wall. If a student earns a perfect score, I write “100% Club” on the note. It is kind of hilarious how motivating a little post-it note is sometimes for these high schoolers. Well math doesn’t come as easily for Kade as some of his peers and he has been trying to get on the wall since last August. Totally entertaining the whole class with his loud commentaries each time I hand back tests of “never give up!” and “when’s our next test so I can try again?” sort of stuff.
Then came January and our dreaded Unit 7 of Logarithms and Exponential Functions. Kade decided after the first two quizzes that he would master logarithms and master he did! On January 22nd, Kade not only got a yellow post it but earned a perfect 20/20 plus the bonus point for 105%. Before slapping his note on the wall, he must have upgraded his 100% Club label to “105% Club”. I never noticed the 105% until I went looking for his post-it and his perfect test this afternoon after meeting with the kids in the library. I just wanted to see his handwriting again and seeing the crossed out 100% made me laugh and cry out loud. We have a new club in our room that I think will just have one member for awhile.
-Tina McMaster, Kade’s Math Teacher