For a Leader in Me lesson, I’m having the kids write about the title of this blog. I thought, “What the heck,” and am writing about it too. I’m also putting this up on my projector so they can see. All ready, have students who are just staring at what I am writing. It’s kind of fun to see who is watching.
Boys and girls, get our of your chair and jump up and down. Ok, only one was watching, but that’s not a bad thing either!
#justgettothepoint
As I think about school, one thing that would make school better is a short time to get together as a group. We are the first time that groups from two different schools come together as a middle school class. Our school does have a beginning of the year campout that we’d normally do, and probably will do whenever Covid is more under control. However, after that, our schedule is such we don’t get many more of those opportunities. School would be better if we could get the groups together and learn names, learn faces, know who is in your class.
#makessense
Another thing that would make school better (as an adult) is more emphasis on mental health. We have a councilor for our building, K-8. She’s running around all over the place, doing lessons in the elementary, talking with our middle school students, and is stretched pretty thin by the pull of both sides of the build. How awesome would it be to have councilors for each side of the building, elementary AND middle school?
#againnoargumentfromme
A third thing that would make school better: quality leadership. Now, my district administration is just fine. We live in a cherry red area, politically speaking, so our mask mandate for the district came yesterday. However, we now have one. Our state is a cluster of Covid. Cedar Rapids, a city 90 miles to our south, is the number one city in the country for Covid rise. We have a governor who, for 200+ days, has told us that she thinks “Iowans will do the right thing”. All the while, Iowans HAVEN’T been doing the right thing. Parties, gatherings, and large swaths of the state who look at the virus and masks as a hoax or worse. It’s amazing how many students complain about how “it’s just the flu” and fight the mask. But this comes from even more then the lack of movement from our governor. This has been politicized from the high levels and I cannot wait for new leadership in Washington.
And finally a schedule that did things that KIDS wanted. A schedule that wasn’t dependent on lunch and PE and the rotations of other shared teachers. A schedule that allowed for coding, art, music, history, or just something new.
My students, for as much I complain at times, are pretty amazing. I’ve attached the blogs my students wrote. I invite you to have a look at how school could get better. Some of them are typical sixth grader venting. But there are some words, some sentences that make sense to me.
Not that I can do anything it, but I can dream.
#damnstraightyoucan
The Life of a Conflicted Teacher 
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