It doesn’t matter whether you have a week left in the school year or a single day, just like any other break, be it winter or spring, you must keep pushing the envelop.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t schedule more learning games or have a (measured and time-limited) end-of-year celebration.
It just means that sidelining academics and lowering standards just because summer is around the corner is a mistake.
Here’s why:
Misbehavior
Like day turns into night, when standards and expectations drop misbehavior increases. If you back off your urgent push for excellence even a tad, you signal that the mice can start playing.
Add to it the inevitable and accompanying failure to follow your classroom management plan as consistently before, and you’ll be out of your mind with stress when the final bell finally rings.
Message
All that talk about the importance of school and learning and treating others with respect starts flying out the window the moment you take your foot off the gas.
Fair or not, it sends the message to your students that you really didn’t mean it. Your motive was ulterior, meant to hide the truth that you’re not a leader who lives their convictions but rather just another adult looking out for themself.
Time
Public schools are failing. They’re spiraling along with many private schools as well. Thus, every moment with students must be an urgent and relentless pursuit of excellence.
When it isn’t, we further reinforce the belief a growing number of students have that education doesn’t matter. After all, how can it be important if you’re willing to forgo independent reading time in favor of a movie they’ve seen a dozen times.
Resonate
I realize that many teachers are already out for the summer. No matter. The lesson remains: Urgency in teaching and learning must never let up.
The same Friday afternoon as Monday morning. May as in August. The day before Halloween as the day following spring break.
It all matters. Every second.
It’s important to mention that if you use the SCM approach, and therefore your students love and appreciate being a part of your classroom, then your students won’t care one wit about eating junk food on the last day of school.
Sign their yearbooks and T-shirts. Allow them to commemorate their memories. All good. Allow and plan for it.
But beyond this, lowering academic standards and behavioral expectations will only damage them, their future, and their memory of you.
So be different than the swarms of below-average teachers filling up our schools.
Stand your ground for what is right. Refuse to give in. Be a leader whose impact resonates in the lives of your students for months, years, and decades later.
PS – If teaching has become stressful for you, check out my new book Unstressed: How to Teach Without Worry, Fear, and Anxiety.
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