There's less than a month left in the school year.
We've met in person since the beginning.
This class is amazing, and I love 'em.
But here we are...
Suddenly, our classmates seem to want to argue with each other, push each other's buttons, get under each other's skin. On the morning of the day I am writing, things happened during PE class that got a couple of the boys upset with each other. Other class members stepped between them to keep the peace, but then they decided to bring the problem back into our room with them. What should have been a quick and accepted apology ended up being a larger problem because it wasn't taken care of where it happened.
With all of our culminating projects, afternoons have been, understandably, less structured than usual, but our afternoons have also been revealing. While students have been able to do smaller group tasks over their tables in the classroom, these looser, more creative projects have presented more difficult challenges. Some groups have split in two in order to keep the peace, with one or two working on one thing while the rest do something else. Even at their stations, their groups are not cohesive. Other groups have also split, but one or two students simply have off-topic conversations rather than work on anything related to the projects. It's as if they just go into the project already expecting to be irritated with each other.
I know that we ended the last school year several weeks ahead of schedule due to you-know-what. Going back to a full year may seem to be extra-long to these kids. This time of year usually brings its share of impatience and anticipation, but it has been all too noticeable with a group that has always gotten along. We have three weeks remaining to tolerate each other. There will be weather changes along the way, pulling at our inner tides. There will still be special end-of-year activities.
There are still things to learn before we leave for the summer.
We've met in person since the beginning.
This class is amazing, and I love 'em.
But here we are...
Suddenly, our classmates seem to want to argue with each other, push each other's buttons, get under each other's skin. On the morning of the day I am writing, things happened during PE class that got a couple of the boys upset with each other. Other class members stepped between them to keep the peace, but then they decided to bring the problem back into our room with them. What should have been a quick and accepted apology ended up being a larger problem because it wasn't taken care of where it happened.
With all of our culminating projects, afternoons have been, understandably, less structured than usual, but our afternoons have also been revealing. While students have been able to do smaller group tasks over their tables in the classroom, these looser, more creative projects have presented more difficult challenges. Some groups have split in two in order to keep the peace, with one or two working on one thing while the rest do something else. Even at their stations, their groups are not cohesive. Other groups have also split, but one or two students simply have off-topic conversations rather than work on anything related to the projects. It's as if they just go into the project already expecting to be irritated with each other.
I know that we ended the last school year several weeks ahead of schedule due to you-know-what. Going back to a full year may seem to be extra-long to these kids. This time of year usually brings its share of impatience and anticipation, but it has been all too noticeable with a group that has always gotten along. We have three weeks remaining to tolerate each other. There will be weather changes along the way, pulling at our inner tides. There will still be special end-of-year activities.
There are still things to learn before we leave for the summer.
