Sunday, May 16, 2010

25 Days

For some teachers, November or March are the hardest months of the year, the downtime, the slog, the time when things are no longer new and exciting but the kids aren't really where you want them to be either. For me though, this is the hardest time of the school year.

In high school, the kids are locked fully into "completely addlepated" mode and even here in Seattle, the sun has begun to shine most days, making it almost impossible for them (or me!) to focus on anything taking place inside. The only thing that either the kids or I can focus on is the end of the school year rapidly approaching.

Adding to that, while I teach mostly sophomores, I have the few random seniors mixed in, most of whom have failed this class the first time around and are here to make up that credit in order to graduate on time. For them, there are only 20 days of school left and they aren't so much focused on school as on the fact that pretty soon no more adults will be Bossing Them Around and Telling Them What To Do All The Time and they will be treated like the Adults They Already Are (I, of course, am only wishing they would behave like the Adults They THINK They Are...). In order to prevent my least favorite spring sport - Angry Yelling From Parents Who Already Invited The Entire Family From The Philippines To Attend Graduation - I h ave to make sure that I am always caught up on the kids' grades, which means that I have been grading almost every weekend since mid-April.

I know that SOUNDS like tons of fun, but it's not as much fun as you might think. Added to that, I have been working track meets again this year, which IS fun, but time-consuming, and you may see why I have been almost totally absent from this blog for quite some time.

This is the hardest time of year for me. I feel like I have no time to do anything and I am never sure where the time goes. And for some reason, this is the time of year when the Parent Conferences come out to play; there was a two week stretch there where I had a parent meeting every single day. Not that meetings are all that unusual, I have an average of 4 per week, aside from the regularly scheduled Friday morning staff development.

This year, adding to the stress, is the fact that I truly like this particular crop of kids. I have had maybe 3 discipline incidents ALL YEAR, and I kind of want to keep them. I really truly like these kids a lot. I am not sure what the difference is, maybe I have a better attitude or something, but this year has gone so incredibly smoothly and I am a little reluctant to let go of it.

And at the same time, I can't wait for summer. Go figure. =)

Have a great week!

1 comment:

Melissa B. said...

I hear ya! But think of it this way: We're in the Home Stretch, no?