The countdown mentality
June 15, 2007
7 Comments
Two more weeks … Three more days … You hear these kinds of statements often during the last few weeks of school.
I remember feeling this way when I was an 8th-grade teacher, but it was because I was sad to see my kids leave. I loved the time I spent with my students and didn’t want it to end. In contrast, most of my teaching colleagues were making these statements from an ‘I can’t wait until it’s over‘ mindset. I definitely was an anomaly (granted, we did work in the ‘toughest’ middle school in the city).
Just one more hour… Should we be concerned that our students count down the days or minutes until school’s over, that they run gleefully for the buses at the end of the day or school year? Or is it just youthful exuberance for whatever’s next?
Just one week to go… Should we be concerned that many teachers count down the days or minutes until school’s over, that many are glad that their time is done? Or is it just bone-tired weariness speaking?
As you can see, I’ve got some questions about this countdown mentality.
![Reflecting on two years of 1:1 [guest post]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/48/pndhs.jpg){kind=small}
![Of course you can’t do that [SLIDE]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/48/OfCourse2.png){kind=small}
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I think the countdown mentality is human nature. Our lives are based around time, and that is how we measure everything. “Three more years until I graduate, then something will really happen.” I am less concerned with the countdown mentality than I am concerned with the when-this-time-comes-then-I-will-be-happy mentality. My students are always living in that mentality. “When I finally get to high school, then life will be good. It sucks in middle school.” Then inevitably, when they get to high school they say, “In three years when I graduate, then life will be good. It sucks in high school.” I believe this is much harder to combat because students don’t live in the now. They are always looking forward to the next milestone, and giving up on making the current scene a worthwhile one.
I to miss my students once they are gone for the summer but I think the countdown feeling is that we as teachers work none stop from Aug – June and we need a break. Recharge our battery’s so we can be excited about teaching again for the next year.
I too am in the minority at my school. I teach middle school students with behavioral/emotional disabilities. I dread the last day of school for my students and hate to think of the chaos most of them have to look forward to during summer. Many of the other teachers in my building go out and party…I go home and cry (only for the night. I recover quickly which is why I’ve been able to beat the sped burnout rate ).
My students have to be “happy” about school getting out because of peer pressure. What would other middle school students think about a student who didn’t want to leave school. Their behavior often tells a different story. So I think maybe the countdown happens as students (and teachers?) try to fit into how they are supposed to feel and act.
And could some of it also be just the excitement some of us feel at facing a major schedule change in our days?
Beth
I do tend to look forward to the “off season,” but not so much because I don’t like being at work or just can’t wait for the year to end… I look forward to enjoying my few weeks off with my family and also having the time to catch up on all my backlogged professional reading.
I look forward to summer because we all need vacation. I give a lot during the year, and I spend a lot of my summer preparing for the new school year, so I see wrong with wanting to move on to that time.
That being said, I changed jobs from a behavior school to regular ed. The sign for me that I needed to make that change was that I was starting to count down in my head in February. IMO, only people in the last year before retirement should be counting down before the final month or so of school. When I start doing that, I know it’s time to move on.
That would be “I see -nothing- wrong with wanting to move on to that time.”
I have often thought seeing folks counting down was a sign of concern for a school. We used to have a teacher who posted a calendar in the staff bathroom and marked off the days for the last six weeks or so. She’s no longer teaching.