Gardening Day

Ben and I decided to do a little yard work on Saturday...so we called in the troops. I don't have a lot to say, the pictures really tell the story well. A clear, sunny day with flowers to plant, holes to dig, mud to squelch, and worms to find. Beautiful.

The End of the School Year

A few interesting things happen at the end of the school year, for students and teachers. Here are my musings on the top three.

1. A little apathy goes a long way.

I decided to not assign any more homework from now until the end of the year. Why, might you ask? Number one - more than the usual number of them weren't really doing it! It's frustrating, because I don't assign very much - maybe twenty minutes per night, if they're really, really slow. I do expect them to read every night, but does that really count as homework? Plus, the excuses usually aren't that good - a ballgame, I was up late, I just forgot, etc. I like it when I ask them to turn in their work and they attempt to give me a look like they don't know what I'm talking about. Like a "huh?" kind of look. Right. That approach might be more realistic if we hadn't been in school almost 170 days. I also like it when they blame it on their parents. "My mom forgot to put it in my backpack." I always ask them if their mom would like to redo it at recess in their place. Number two reason - I'm tired of grading it. And tired of grading much of anything at all, really. I'm not trying to complain about my job - I know I have the best vacation time on the planet. I'm just staring to feel a little antsy. Time for a change, I guess.

2. Changes (even good ones) are often felt first as a loss. Then glee.

I keep telling my class that I'm sad about the year being over so soon. That's only partially true. I am sad about leaving the comfort of this year. Our little ecosystem of personalities is so known, so familiar. This familiarity brings about another issue that I'll discuss later, but this year really has been great. No majorly angry, fit-throwing kids that are volatile and at times hostile. None of those kinds of parents, either. Nope, this has been, with only a very few exceptions, a delightful class. Smart, sweet, well-behaved, all of those things. I will miss them.
On toward the glee part. It will be nice to do work that doesn't require so much emotional attention and energy this summer. Like grad school and laundry and running. Plus reading. I've already started a little summer reading - The Rising Tide by Jeff Sharra. It's a historically accurate novel about the war in northern Africa and (I think) Europe (I haven't gotten there yet) in WWII. There's nothing better to do in the stifling heat than sit in the air conditioning and read.

3. Extreme irritation with things that formerly had resulted in a slight roll of the eyes.

My students are much more cranky with each other than they were in the beginning of the year. I don't usually have much of a problem with tattling, because I just don't listen to it, so the kids can start to work out their own irritations with each other. Sometimes that can get to the boiling point, though, especially at this time of the year. 24 people in the same room all day, five days a week, for 36 weeks of school. We're practically family now. We're on the edge of insanity with each other, myself included, as I watch the same kid do the same thing that I've asked him (or her) not to do - ALL YEAR.

Oh, well. Twelve more days of school. Two more days of inservice. Then I'm sure my summer will fly.