It’s the first day back from winter break. The students are tired, and so are the teachers.
Some teachers choose to ease students back in with community-building activities or lighter, low-stakes work. In my World History class, I did the opposite. We jumped straight into the causes of World War I, working through thinking maps in groups and analyzing primary sources. A few students were visibly aghast that they had to work on the very first day back. Still, it’s a privilege teaching at a school where about 95% of students will do the work with little to no pushback. The other 5% end up doing it with a little bit of push-back and parental text home threats (as needed).
I usually dread the first day back after winter break, but being at Kennedy has made that anxiety mostly unnecessary. At the end of the day, the students care about their grades, and that intrinsic motivation carries a lot of weight. It’s always interesting how the “personality” of a class can shift from period to period depending on the group. Even within my IB classes, one section is noticeably more jovial and lighthearted, while the other is more serious, though both clearly care about their future paths in life. Both, however, get to spend the next two weeks revising their internal assessments. Hoorah.
Even my worst class of the day right after lunch was surprisingly decent on the first day back, giving me hope for a less stress inducing final 5 months of school.
The most ridiculous moment of the day came during my last class, when a student gifted me yet another flag featuring my face. The original flag from my Dale Junior High days currently lives in a storage closet, but the students insisted this new one (with a pink background) be hung up. And so it is—now serving as a daily jump scare for anyone who walks into the room.
