I am very passionate about allowing kids to Play.
I would like to take a minute to comment on an EdSource article from a while back. It is one I have thought about for a while. I want all of my students to love learning the way I do, but I also know people cannot learn when their brains are overloaded.
I am teaching 7th grade this year. As I write this, I can tell you that my brain is overloaded. It is February 2023. We started spring semester on January 9th this year.
This is what Spring semester looks like:
- January 9th through January 20th: District mandated ELA STAR preparation
- January 10th-January 19th: Math STAR Testing
- January 20th- January 31st: ELA STAR Testing
- February 1st- February 10th: Math IAB Testing
- February 11th- February 23rd: ELA IAB Testing
- February 25th- March 22nd: ELPAC Testing (40% of our students need to reclassify)
- March 23rd- March 30th: ELPAC Makeup Testing
- Spring Break
- April: SBAC Preparation
- May 1st- May 10th: Math SBAC
- May 11th- May 20th: ELA SBAC
- May 20th- May 28th: Math STAR
- May 29th- June 5th: ELA STAR
The 8th graders are taking the History SBAC this year. English classes are also supposed to be reading a novel during this time.
Our school does not have recess.
Instead, students have 5 minutes between passing periods to meet with friends and enjoy down time. They have little to no time to enjoy each other.
We, as teachers, have no time to allow students to relax in class.
I use multimedia, games, and try to have students moving around, but a vast majority of teachers stand at the podium and lecture. It’s not because they are bad teachers but because there is so much pressure to make sure our underperforming schools perform better that teachers fall back on what they learned in school.
It almost seems counterintuitive to allow kids to relax if you want them to perform better, but allowing kids time to relax and play together creates a community. The bond between students and teachers is important for things like testing. If the students know we are compassionate and understand they cannot be “on” all the time, they will be on when they need to. It’s not actually about performance though. Kids should be allowed to enjoy their childhood while learning the things they need to know about life.
Our lowest performing schools are in a dangerous negative loop or underperforming and being given more work, then performing worse and getting more work. We need to stop and reset, and stop penalizing students for being poor.
Apricus Academy 