I've been hearing a lot of concern recently about educators worried that they're falling behind. That they still have a lot left to teach. That their kids still have a lot left to learn. I get it. Last year was a really strange year in education, ending with almost four months at home learning -- and sometimes not learning -- online. Many educators feel that their students were behind to begin with, and that they never quite caught up.
Now with increased COVID cases, another lockdown (or is it a shutdown?!), and a holiday weekend followed soon by an April Break, there are worries that we might be online again. For how long? Who knows. Will it happen? Maybe yes and maybe no, but either way, many teachers wonder if they need to cram even more into a shorter period of time so that kids don't fall "further behind."
I don't know about everyone else, but when I look back to our class on Thursday, I would say that many of our kids were dysregulated. They were wandering more, asking more questions, being more argumentative, and being more apt to break down into tears. The best part of the day was actually multiple unexpected conversations around art in the sink.
Knowing that it's going to be a short week after a long weekend, I wonder just how important Self-Reg is going to be this week. What are some things that your students need to self-regulate? What about you? Maybe the academics can wait, and maybe this is exactly what our kids really need this week. Could this also be what we need?
Aviva