Friday. God’s gift to the universe.
“You’ve got to send me the calendar dates not the days,” said my friend. “Days of the week mean nothing to me.” That’s how it is in the rest of the world. Not schools.
Days of the week are everything in schools.
Monday: The day every kid dreads and nobody did my homework. I call it “Oh Shit Monday,” because they all come in saying, “Oh, shit. I forgot to finish your project, Miss. Can I get it to you tomorrow?” I teach high school. That’s how they talk. The work, incidentally, was due Friday, because who wants to work on the weekend, but they said, “I’m just gonna finish it up and catch you Monday.”
That’s never a good plan.
“First of all, it’s not my project. It’s yours. And yes. Just make sure it’s good and doesn’t hurt my soul,” I say.
I don’t hate Mondays because I like my kids. But I never make work really due on a Monday, because that’s just pointless.
Tuesday. Tuesday’s the real first day of the week because everyone was in denial on Monday. That’s the day I expect people to bring in the Monday work or the “I didn’t finish on Friday” stuff. By Tuesday, some students even remember a pencil for class.
Wednesday. The hardest day of the week. We’ve been working since Tuesday, which means 48 hours of actual pressure on the brain and the knowledge there’s still a long way to go. In schools, it’s not Hump Day, it’s more like “Trying to Summit Everest without an Oxygen Tank Day.” Acute mountain sickness–confusion, nausea, oxygen deprivation. That’s Wednesday.
Thursday. There’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Everyone will survive this week. I photobomb a few kids’ Snapchats to celebrate.
Friday. We’ve survived! I know it’s been a good week when kids are disappointed to leave my class on a Friday because they want to finish the work or hear the exciting ending to the unit which we never quite finish because they want to do more.
“You’re only going to get to 50% of what you think you’ll teach,” said the first master teacher I ever worked under. He was right. That’s true for everything in life, why should it be different for teaching. We can never get it all done.
“They’ll only remember 8% of what you say anyway,” studies show. That’s true for adults, too.
“So, why can’t we just come to 8% of school?” some kid asked. “School’s boring, anyway.”
That’s a good point. I try to cut out the 92% that’s not exciting, but some of it’s just written into the red tape of the system.
None of that matters on a Friday, though. We made it! It’s the weekend–sleep in, drink coffee, go nuts!
Because “Oh Shit Monday” will sneak up on you faster than you think!
[photo credit: kilgarron, flickr: Brilliant photography!]
