It should have been bad but it wasn’t. Well, not completely.

I’m not sure if I’ve just become too cynical for my own good and am therefore not giving my students or myself enough credit.

Today was the day our junior high school students at the school where I work begin their annual “camp”. As I understand it, this is a time for bonding/getting out of regular classes and clubs that will be the last trip they take for a couple years. (Note: at the school where I work students take extended trips ever couple of years; between those years they suffer.)

For reasons I don’t fully understand, the school cancels afternoon classes for jhs 1s but leaves the morning classes in place. This doesn’t bother me that much as I also get a break, but it also usually means the morning classes are terrible as, in their minds, the students are already at camp.

However, both classes today were pretty good. Students actually did work and, for the most part, participated in activities.

However, they were rowdier than usual and there was a clear cut off in both classes–at around the 40 minute mark–when students in both classes all seemed to decide they were finished. At that point they became more rowdy and most of them stopped listening to any words I said.

However, because I knew what was happening, I mostly let them get away with “retiring” early. I couldn’t give them homework and there was no way to keep them after school. If I withheld the punishment until the next class, the reason for the punishment would be lost somewhere in the past. (It would be, if I’ve done the math correctly, the equivalent of punishing me for something I did over four weeks ago which is something that only happens in marriage, not in the real world. Something like that.)

Next week I’ll be dealing with the aftermath of three different school trips. That, however, is a problem for another post.