Finals-The Ultimate Test (of patience)

Finals begin this week in the high schools and tensions are high. An odd thing happens when you get to the last week of the grading period and it's even worse when that coincides with the end of the semester. Kids start to really care about their grades.

The first four weeks or so of the six-week grading period, most kids coast. They try to turn in late work, when they get around to it. By Weeks 5 & 6, they start to apply pressure to me to let them turn in REALLY old work (sorry, kid).

Then, there's the "What can I do to get my grade up?" epidemic. They want to retake tests (I let them redo one a grading period). They want extra credit. They want me to "give" them a better grade. They try to bribe me. Honest. I keep telling them that it's have to be enough for me to retire on since I'd lose my job. They say no one would have to know. I just laugh.

Of course, the laughing is only when I'm not stressed out myself, which will be rare this week. I try to mentally "step out" of the whole situation and just do the work without absorbing the kids' stress as well as my own. It's tough.

While this is going on, I'm also going to be packing for my trip. I haven't been talking about it much, even to friends. I don't know if I just don't want to jinx it or tell everyone and then have it fall through or what.

Any way, the movie of the day: Tuck Everlasting. It's a Disney movie about a family that finds the fountain of youth and a girl who falls for the son. It's an interesting look about the good and bad of being young forever.

Ludicrous Lutefisk,

:)Becca