1. What was your goal?
2. Did you meet your goal? If you had a goal of doing better on the CST, we don’t know that yet, but your last benchmark test should give you an idea of how you are doing.
3. What helped you meet your goal? Or, what kept you from meeting your goal?

I will be pulling you to the back to share your goals, in the meantime, please do the following activities until the timer rings:

• You’re Going to College! EconEdLink – Interactive
• KnowHow2GO to College Homepage
• Presidential Campaign Ad-O-Matic

Here is a list of SMART Goals:

S              Specific : It’s not too big and not too small
Example: I will move up one test level on the state math test
Non-Example: I will do better in school

M            Measurable: I can measure whether I’ve been successful or not
Example: I will have fewer suspensions this year
Non-Example: I will get along with others

A             Attainable: Most people could do this
Example: I will pass sixth grade
Non-Example: I will take college classes in middle school

R             Realistic: I can do this
Example: I will improve my math scores
Non-Example: I will get a Ferrari

T              Timely: It can be done in a school year
Example: I will go up one test level on the state test
Non-Example: I will go to college

What mistakes does Wil E Coyote make in setting his goals? Please send me 2 sentences about this.

Photo credit: Wil E Coyote from Punk Jr’s photostream on flickr

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.