Never that student who was on top of everything, for me the end of the semester always brought late nights and, if I'm honest? More than a wee bit of panic.
Not much has changed, even after 30 years of facing the end of the grading period as a teacher, rather than a student. It still seems like I have more to do than could possibly be done.
I guess we'll see by Friday.
I couldn't tell you the last time my brother, sister, and I went out to lunch, just the three of us.
Oh, wait, yes I can.
It was today! ♥️
The last weeks of school can be brutal, a merciless mix of must-dos and wanna-dos. On the one hand, the end of the year brings final assignments, paperwork, tests, cleaning, and packing, but there is also the bittersweet desire to celebrate the accomplishments of the year while at the same time bidding it farewell.
As in any complicated season, getting over-scheduled and overwhelmed is easy, and this year has been no exception for me. My days have been packed so full, that my night's sleep has been interrupted by anxiety. Even though I have made an effort to exercise each day, the poor air quality we have been experiencing has limited my options for recreation.
But fortunately, Friday will come, no matter what the week has been like. After a fun day of teaching and then a traditional end-of-the-year potluck with friends and colleagues, I worked until 5:30 on tracking the last days of the writing challenge, sending out prize requests, and organizing my part of the field day Monday with contingency plans for rain.
When we walked out of the building, the air was clear for the first time in days, and a light breeze lifted my spirits. On the way home we passed the garden and I realized that I hadn't given it more than a second thought for this whole dry week. So as soon as I unloaded my stuff, I changed into shorts, laced up my dirty garden sneakers, jammed a hat on my head and air pods in my ears, and started the walk up the hill.
Just being outside was a tonic and with each step, it felt like I was actually leaving the stress of the week behind me. The garden was fine, and I spent a cool evening hour watering and weeding until the sun fell below the trees on the far side fence and, refreshed, I turned my attention toward home.
It was the last 'A' Block day of the year, and my crazy 5th-period class was freaking out a little. "We have to do something special!" one student demanded.
"How about your work, for a change?" I teased them, but the truth was there was work to do. First up was the warm-up question, which today was to post some advice for the kids who will be in my class next year.
"Will they really see this?" asked a student suspiciously, "Because I don't think we got any advice."
"I think so," I answered, mentioning the bulletin board in the hallway with an"Advice from a Dolphin" theme. "I could put your advice up there."
What followed was a mixture of sound and silly, but before we got to the sharing, there was the hurry-up incentive portion of the routine. Any writer who could post an answer, close their iPad, get out their writing notebook, and wait quietly could take a guess from the Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza deck. If they were right, they would win a Jolly Rancher.
"Who's feeling something?" I asked in my best emcee voice. Hands shot up. "Lucas! What are you feeling?"
"Goat"
"Ooof!" I replied turning over a pizza card.
If you know the game, then you know in the deck of 64 cards, there are also 3 narwhals, gorillas, and groundhogs. In our guessing game, those are freebies, if you are willing to do the required gesture. Sebastian got a narwahl, and immediately clapped his hands over his head.
"Let's make this interesting," I said. "If anybody else gets a special card, then you can all have a Jolly Rancher.
With great enthusiasm, the remaining 10 made their guesses. There were no winners.
"Wait! What about you? You haven't guessed," noted a student desperately, since I never guess.
"Okay," I agreed, "Tell you what, if I get it right, or it's a special, you win!" I looked at the deck in my hand. "I'm getting a strong feeling of cheese," I started, "but maybe it's just because there are a lot of cheese cards on the table." I closed my eyes. "I have to go with cheese," I said after a moment and flipped the card.
It was a groundhog! Everyone cheered and rapped their knuckles on the table in front of them. They leapt out of their seats and high-fived me. "This is why we love this class!" a student crowed.
"All right," I nodded. "You will get your prize as soon as you are back in your seats working quietly."
And that is what happened. It turned out to be a pretty productive day.
There seemed to be more masks than usual in school today, although I didn't really notice at first. It was more than half an hour into the day that I overheard two students talking about air quality. Listening to their conversation I realized that there was a whole environmental crisis brewing right outside of which I was not aware.
How did I miss these wildfires in Canada? Why had I not questioned the smudgy red ember of the sun rising through the hazy morning? How could I overlook my sandy eyes and scratchy throat? Our air quality today was among the worst in the world, smoke from a thousand miles away casting a murky golden fog over our forecasted breezy blue skies.
And now that I know it's here? I can't wait for it to be gone.
A cheeky student was sitting behind my desk this afternoon after the bell. "I'm Ms. S!" she proclaimed. "Do you want a Jolly Rancher?"
"Come out from there," I directed her.
She complied, but on her way, she grabbed the ukulele. A few kids were hanging around before they headed home, shooting baskets and putting golf balls, mostly. Another teacher came in; she needed to leave, but she had a student who was willing to stay and work on a project coming due. I shrugged and invited him to find a seat.
"Will you play the ukulele?" another kid asked.
I had forgotten I was holding it after I had confiscated it from the student exiting my desk. I looked over at the new arrival; he had set his violin down and was opening his iPad to work. "Do you play ukulele?" I asked him.
"Actually, I do play a bit," he answered and so I handed him the instrument. He plucked the strings and hummed, then asked what note each one was. Clearly, he did not play, but soon he was fingering chords and strumming a little melody. "Now we just need some harmony," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Scanning the room, his eyes lit up when he saw that one of the other kids was a fellow violinist. He handed her the ukulele. "Play a melody!" he said as he unpacked his violin.
She took the instrument and ran her fingers across the strings. She tried a violin chord that sounded very dissonant, then another that was lovely, minor, and moody. She strummed a 4/4 beat while he rosined his bow. And then he began to play, and she did, too, moving her fingers and varying the rhythm. He matched her improvisation with his own, and then a couple of other students pulled out a clarinet and a flute, and all of a sudden we had a little wind and string ensemble of our very own.
Oh, it was over in minutes (they are only 12), but it was pretty amazing while it lasted. then they got back to bickering about stickers, writing for the 100-Day Challenge, and finishing their other work.
I don't know what made me think of it, but once I did? I had to have a little mini-golf course in my room for a brain break.
So I went to the thrift shop and combed the sporting goods section. there I found six putters for three bucks each and a bag of seven neon golf balls for another three dollars. In my classroom, I used duct tape, solo cups, and ring toss rings from a previous brain break (found in the Target dollar bins) to set up a six-hole course with chairs and tables for obstacles. To complete the activity I printed nine-hole mini-golf scorecards for four players.
The two-par course has a four-stroke limit, and 20 kids can get through it in a little over 10 minutes. Okay, there's no windmill, but not for lack of trying-- my colleague next door searched her cupboards for the motorized pinwheel she had years ago for some science experiment, but just couldn't find it. She did give me some extra foam core, though, and now I'm dreaming of bumpers and ramps.
Eight more days to go!
