Wednesday, May 17, 2023
I have subbed four separate weeks for my friend whose mom had a stroke in December. Her mom is doing better than originally expected, which brought its own surprises and challenges, and I am so glad that she was able to take off the time to be with her. As far as I am concerned, it was a great opportunity for me, because she is at the elementary school I love, and I get to go there. The only downside is that she transfers schools for the last hour every day to work with their 5th graders and they are…um….challenging.
Yesterday, I had an art project to make origami bookmarks. I planned it because I thought it would break up just researching on the computer and I wasn’t sure if they would still have their computers. I introduced it to the group and it was not an overall success. A girl told me she did not have to watch the video to learn how to do the folding, because she already does origami. She proceeded to fold a ninja star. When I suggested she do our project, she said no. She already knows origami. There was a group of five boys who also said no. It wasn’t art class and they weren’t doing it. They weren’t going on the website that was the alternate media assignment and they weren’t going to sit at the tables – they were going to sit on the comfy couches and play Mario Brothers on their computers. I said no and no one listened. I was pleasant and said it was the assignment and blah blah blah. I wondered when exactly they had learned that they could just do whatever they wanted to do, and no one was going to stop them.
I didn’t stop them. I didn’t have time. I had the whole rest of the class trying to fold – and 87% of them were unable to match corners to make a straight fold (but THANK YOU KIDS for trying!!) and I decided it wasn’t worth the fight at the expense of everyone else’s success.
It really bothered me. I was cranky that they wouldn’t do what was asked and then I let them not do what was asked. I was definitely part of the problem. It repeatedly came into my head last night. I didn’t do the right thing and that bugs me.
Today, I decided not to bring the bookmark stuff. I decided to do the original go-on-a-website stuff. (The bookmarks were real-teacher approved. I didn’t just go rogue.) I had a note that the first class might be late because they had a field trip. I was there on time, but they were not. When they showed up, they looked beat. They had been at a multi-elementary school track and field day and were exhausted. They were so quiet. They were pleasant. THEY DID WHAT THEY WERE ASKED. It was staggering. It wasn’t the actual same kids as yesterday, but they are usually tricky in their own way.
So, I have solved 5th graders. Make them play outside all day before you have to deal with them.
Sounds like a plan to me…. The recalcitrant 5th graders just drive me batty. Exactly when did we turn into a world of zero consequences for not complying with instruction? This kind of thing has been on the rise for years, and it sure seems to be unhealthy to me – for everybody. BUT, it’s not YOUR job to fix that!
Definitely couldn’t fix it alone, but I do wish to contribute to it as little as possible.
I was going to say that those kids aren’t being prepared for life after school, including employment, but maybe they are. What with news of late, maybe their jobs won’t require them to know anything, or maybe there won’t be any jobs. Dire predictions brought to you courtesy of reading the novel Robopocalypse and hearing a friend’s experience playing around with Chat GPT.
On the other hand, maybe the school will adopt your solution and send them on enough field trips that they’ll be too tired to resist learning. Fingers crossed!