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| courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain |
Counting today we have only three Mondays left in the school
year, thanks to Memorial Day on May 30th. Teachers are trying to get
last minute projects, papers, tests, and other assignments turned in, graded,
and into the grade book before End-of-Grade testing starts next week.
Students are scrambling to get those same projects, papers, and
other assignments finished and turned in. My home room students begged me to
give them time to get their Math binders in shape this morning. The binders are
due today. Mind you, if they had kept their binders in order all throughout the
quarter turning it in would be a simple matter of bringing it to class and
giving it to their Math teacher. Naturally, most of the students’ binders are a
chaotic mix of notes, quizzes, tests, homework, and assignments stuffed into
the binder in no particular order.
Employing my experience and wisdom gained through nearly a
decade and a half of teaching middle school children, I have decided that
letting them work openly to do what they could in this last hour before their
Math class would save me a lot of aggravation. Were I to try and teach
something new or review something old in science this morning I would be faced
with a room full of students trying to completely their Math binders on the
sly.
Better to let them have this time to help each other get their binders
ready. It builds good will with the students, improves their opinion of
teachers in general, and will aid my colleague whose unenviable task it will be
to grade these binders by the end of the week.
As for the science lesson for today, it was going to be on
Newton’s Second Law. Newton’s Laws have been around for centuries. It can wait
one more day for these kids to learn it.
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
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