Teachers: Prepare for the End of the Year

I believe I have put off long enough an article regarding my chosen career. I am not a teachers' rendition of the wise and earthly Nostradamus (I do not even sport a beard like his), but pretending to be prophetic is one of my stronger traits. At the risk of sounding full of myself, I believe that every single teacher in the history of the universe (too much hyperbole?) should read this and follow its advice. We have come to that time of year in which students, quite weary and attempting to recover from the hang-over known as spring break, are starting to check their calendars with a startling frequency. OK, who am I kidding? I am checking my calendar quite often too. We all are, those of us mired in the school classroom-world, a quasi-society all its own. The "us" versus "them" mentality between teachers and students reaches a frenzied peak when weeks are numbering in the single digits. Minor infractions in class become nuclear, possibly shattering a positive classroom environment. Teachers become short with their students and students can feel a warming glow from the overhead springtime sun.

New teachers may have problems with students that, at one time, were angelic and sincere in their class studies. Now they seem more like the goblins in the movie theater scene of the hit 80's movie Gremlins. But how do we counteract this ever-increasing obnoxious and off-task behavior and still maintain our own sanities, fellow teacher? There is no clear-cut method and some of my results vary by class. Every group of students is their own organism, their own character usually developed by the children who volunteer the most in class. For example, if you have five students who act crazy and disrespectful in the class, chances are that is the classes character. Besides, when you were in school, did you not want to break a teachers' momentum and slow the class down? I know I did!