In Defense of Extracurriculars

Oh, hey.

Teacher: “Does anyone know what macro means?”
Student: “Macaroni?”

There are many moments when students say things – funny things – and I hold my smile or laughter so as not to embarrass a kid or condone something that is inappropriate. This was not one of those moments. I laughed. The student smiled, and then laughed. Other kids laughed. And I laughed again. Then we moved on.

Today was exam day. Now, on the surface it does not seem that bad. I mean, most of the work takes place before the exam. In a perfect world, you backwards plan. That is, you write your unit plan and exam for that period before you actually teach it. In a not-so-perfect world, you plan your unit and have an exam in mind; however, the exam gets written a little closer to the actual exam date. Never mind that now…

Still, in both cases, the majority of the work seems to be done before students actually take the exam. Today proved to be different. My first period class had a study guide that was exactly like their exam. Exactly. I mean the same number of questions and same type of questions that were even in the same numerical spot. Needless to say, there was a drastic difference between the students that did the study guide and those that did not. They were not happy. I was not happy. We told each other. It was not fun.

In a different class, I also scolded students for not reading directions before their test. Maybe I would not have been upset had I not read the directions out loud twice. They were also written in bold font at the top of the test. So I was not in the mood to hear, “What am I supposed to do on the test?”—especially when it was in the same format of the assignments that we had been doing for the past few class periods.

By the end of the day, I was so tired that I was hoping nobody would show up to the mock trial team meeting. I rushed to go print out materials for the meeting and then went to the room. Starting with the last meeting, I now begin our gatherings with a teamwork and concentration exercise. The students have to close their eyes and count to twenty out loud as a group. Somebody must say “one,” then another, “two,” and another, “three,” and so on—all the way to twenty. The catch is that no two students can say a number at the same time. They have to be patient, calm, and attempt to vibe with their teammates. It is an exciting and relaxing exercise that I absolutely love.

Well, after about six tries, the students finally got it, and they were so excited! I was thrilled, too. We started going through the case, and we had great dialogue back and forth. I found myself smiling and laughing: leading the kids as their faculty advisor, but also enjoying myself as their co-conspirator in fun and learning. I was teacher, fellow teammate, mentor, and colleague all at the same time. I had a blast.

I love the kids that I teach during the day, but it is also great to work with students in a different way in extracurricular activities. When I was in high school, there were days when I may have had three different one and a half hour tests in one day. It is neither fun for the students nor the teachers. On those days, I looked forward to those activities about which I was most passionate: musical rehearsal, barbershop quartet practice, going over some scenes for the Black History production. Those lifted my entire day.

Today reminded me of how being in a productive environment – as I would categorize most useful extracurricular activities – outside of the normal classroom can keep us both sane and stable.

Note Fail

I wrote this note as a pass for a student to enter class late. Apparently, my handwriting is so bad that the teacher accused her of forging it, and I had to walk her to class...haha.

Apparently, I was also supposed to mark a date and time...