It's no wonder that there haven't been as many paragraphs a day for the last couple of weeks--after all, we've been in the last couple of weeks of our school year, and most of my focus has been on ending the year well. For me, ending the year is different than it is for most high school teachers. I try to end on an academic note, keeping students focused on the topic on hand until the very end, not worrying about having parties or showing movies or anything like that. We spent the last couple of days reviewing for the final, then we had the final. After all, my job isn't to be best buddies with my students--rather, my job is to help to prepare them for the future by exposing them to some academic rigor that actually demands something from them, including focus and work and effort. I find that most of my students appreciate the fact that I'm one of the few teachers that actually demands some effort from them, for they find that they learn more when they're asked to push themselves. They also find that they have abilities that they never dreamed they had when they're pushed to levels that they haven't been pushed to yet. And don't worry--I'm not super strict on grading. They get pretty generous grades from me, but only after they've pushed themselves and found themselves worrying about their grade. After all, when we worry about something, we tend to be willing to push ourselves even harder to avoid negative outcomes--and I find my students pushing themselves constantly to improve themselves and their performance. And that, of course, is what's going to help them more in the long run than anything else.
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