Here is to the final stretch and dragging my way there.
This morning I woke up with a million things on my mind. Lessons not completely planned, family stuff adding up, and most importantly a new place to decorate. I want nothing more than to be home putting together Ikea furniture. I finally had to drag myself to sleep night after spending hours on a dresser only to realize I used the wrong screw about a dozen steps back, can't hurt right? Unfortunately though we can't just take the day, work from home, or make it up this evening. We need to be here at school, supporting our students. Some of us passed the big STAAR day, some of us are in the final countdown, and others are waiting for the end with ACPs. This year more than ever I seem to run across more and more teachers exhausted and counting down the minutes until June. We are close, but not there yet. The last six weeks is just a week away.
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.
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.
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