I thought teaching middle school was hard…….until I’ve spent the last 2 days with my daughters – Leni (3 years) and Teddy (5 months). When I’m at school I don’t always know what goes on at home which means I make up what I think should go on. As a result, when I get home and the house is in chaos, I’m disappointed. I refrain from comment, but it’s hard for me to hide my facial expressions. These last 2 days, I figured what exactly goes on day to day. The answer is…….you never know what in the hell will happen……….sometimes it’s a good day, sometimes a bad day.
Managing 7th and 8th graders is tough enough, but nothing compared to a 3 year old and a 5 month old. What’s going to keep Leni happy? What’s going to keep Teddy from crying? Will Teddy take a bottle and sleep for more than 20 minutes? Will we make it to ballet on time? Did I bring enough clothes and diapers with me? Do I need a bottle? I expect things to go as planned, but this isn’t one of those gigs. I think that’s what stresses me out – the unknown. Kudos to my wife for doing the day in and day out parenting. Our daughters are healthy, happy, and sweet as can be and she gets all the credit.
All of this had me thinking, however; sometimes we think we know what students go through. Partly, because we were students. Sometimes we assume and make up the things we expect of them. The truth is, we really don’t know what they go through. Maybe it’s tougher than we think.
What if we followed a student’s schedule for one day? Class to class – 50 minutes at a time. One subject after another…….most of which isn’t cross curricular. Learn. Forget. Learn. Forget. Learn. Forget. You get it. Would this exhaust our minds? Would we have a better understanding of what they go through? Would a full day seem easy to us?
I know I asked a lot of questions here. But, these questions I don’t have answers for. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the answers……….but for one day I would like to follow a students schedule to find out.
Moler's Musings 