Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.

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Fridays in the Classroom

1 comment

April 25, 6:53 PM

by Erica Jacobs, Education Examiner

Fridays, Fridays.

First of all, on Fridays, high school seniors--especially if the weather is nice--stay home. Not all of them, of course, but enough so that taking roll is a ten-minute activity. The Boynton cartoon "The little joys of teaching are without number" is one of my favorites, and sums up the joys of Fridays.

But add to the small class size a sense of holiday--of imminent liberation--and you understand that Fridays may be not-so-good for the curriculum, but just fine for a sense of well-being. Today, for instance, Audrey was grinning from ear-to-ear because a teacher suggested she would have a better chance of getting off the waitlist and accepted by Mary Washington College if she asked for an interview. And today is the interview. Niveen also is waiting to hear from college--George Mason University--and I think her chances are good for an acceptance. Those students who are still in college limbo deserve special treatment because they feel like the only ones they know who aren't situated for next year. I try to do my part for these students by writing recommendations, but mostly they have to rely on their own good sense.

So today there were the happy-it-was-Friday students, happy-it-was-spring students, sad-they-aren't-accepted-by- the-college-of-their-choice students, and the absent.

As teachers, we have to take in all that's going on around us, but the most important role we play is carrying on as though it's not a Friday at all!
Topics: fridays , student , teacher , college

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