I've spoken on this blog of moments of success, and shared pictures of good work, but there's always the seedy underbelly of teaching that doesn't get publicized.
It's that classic visual joke: Here's your best profile picture, and here's the one that others post of you...
So what occurred to me today is that as successful as moments have been, my students are still burned out. Still ready for summer, and they're disengaging in shocking numbers. A drama class that has students that check-out is not a drama class. Can't be.
So what happened? Why should a student be burned out by June? Why do they (who have several two week breaks over the course of a year) have to live for their vacation? What learning are they yearning for that isn't being satiated by the system here?
Climbing the ladder to graduation is tiring I suppose. Which is why the success now appears to be the independent projects that happen outside of class. There are a number of extra-curricular things going on that have the students intensely engaged (so much so they'll risk skipping class to work on them).
How do we formatively, or summatively mark when they don't want us around 'interfering'? Why do they see us as foreign to their personal projects?
As I flush these final questions from my system weeks before my own immanent 'vacation' I realize I too am simply flaming out.
