This final few weeks though can be the most important and stressful. We get worried about all our students don’t know, we push them to work harder than they have all year right as the weather gets nice, and we often beat ourselves up to much for what they don’t know. In reality, these next few weeks are probably the most fun as well. We have established relationships with our students and all systems are hopefully running smoothly (except the pencils, they have been in the same box, in the same spot since day 1, why is that so hard). Now that we have those relationships and systems we can see mastery happening faster and the large academic gains, but we can also build on the other stuff that matters. The life lessons, the support, or even the advice. We can push the challenging problems in class, try the project we didn’t dare in September or have that discussions we were afraid to start.
I recently asked a student what should change in class. He said “I want this class to be the class I can’t wait to come to and talk about in 5 years still. I want this class to the class I remember.” We still have time to make that class for all our students. We are close, but not yet finished.