the long of the short of it

I don't know why the weeks with four work days seem the longest. Why is that? School has been full of ups and downs this week. The students were so annoyingly obnoxious at first, they seem to be starting to settle into routine again. I have to keep telling them to settle down and have even given out a couple of detentions. Yikes! I really hate to have to be like that. Every day has its ups and downs... classes I look forward to more than others.

This week it's definitely been Sociology that I look forward to. We're working on norms and sanctions. Today I had them individually make a list of five norms in their friend groups. I haven't done this activity for a while and my own five included:

1. Under no circumstances date a friend's ex.
2. Never wear sweats in public.
3. Do not troll bars looking for a drunken slutty tumble.
4. Never dumb yourself down.
5. Give help/support even when your friends don't know how to ask for it.

After the whole class talked about their lists, they broke into smaller groups to talk about what happens in their friend group when someone violates the norms. And finally, they had to talk about how people can move into or out of friend groups. Seniors in high school have such clearly defined ideas about all of this, it's interesting to get them going on an informal discussion.

When school was done, I handed in my reaccreditation committee's report. I can't even explain what that felt like. And it looks like the Steering Committee will have remarks ready for revision by Friday so I can edit before distributing to the faculty as a whole. I just can't believe it's done.

I really wish people who aren't educators could understand what it actually is like to teach. I mean, there are so many people who think all we do is hand out worksheets or assignments and then sit back and watch the students work away. It just isn't like that at all. One class today had twenty-something students in it at a time and as I am introducing them to World War I and the alliances which caught more countries in the momentum of war, one girl bursts into tears and then silently sobs--her whole body racked with silent sobs--for about twenty seconds before I just casually walked over with a tissue, talking about what an Arch-Duke is, and gave her a little shoulder pat and left the tissue with her. I tried not to disrupt the whole class and draw more attention to her than she had already done to herself... it just is surreal. Forty-three minutes with twenty-six hormonal people having twenty-six different reactions to what we're doing. And each class has a dynamic and a rhythm and so forth. Learning styles that are more dominant and so forth. How can I make it interesting for each one at all times every moment? Huh? How? Yeah, so that's one of the big lessons: enjoy success with one student at a time. If I can hook one kiddo during a class and know they are in the palm of my hand, it's the best feeling!

So here we are cresting the hump of the week. Ahhh, yes, it's a slide to the weekend now. The short weeks really are the longest.

What if this is as good as it gets?