The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Spring is my favorite time of the year, especially here in Southern California.  The weather, usually pleasant in any season, daily begins to shift from chilly mornings to summer-like afternoons, recently lengthened by the clock’s change over.   Hummingbirds dart frantically between flowers, while gigantic clouds lazily drift across the sky.

I don’t know about other teachers, but Spring has also become my favorite part of the school year.  Much of the year’s workload is behind us.  Lessons have been taught and learned.  Completed projects decorate once-emptier classrooms.  The end of the school year is in sight, the trophies of a year well spent scattered all around.

The best aspect in the Spring classroom rests on the students themselves.  They have grown and “matured.”  While still marked by their endemic “squirreliness,” Middle school students seem to walk with more purpose, more confidence, and more self-assurance. Conversations between teachers and students reflect a “relationship” carefully (perhaps, “relentlessly” is a better term?) built by regular interactions – held both in the classroom and outside of the classroom -- during the previous months.  As a result, classroom discussions seem to take on a more informed, mature, deeper timbre.  Essays take a more informed turn. . .and actually offer citations for information they use.   For an English teacher, this is where the magic happens!

The students have learned.  Spring proves it.

Enjoy the “Expression Explosion” celebration coming to the St. John’s Lutheran School campus on Thursday and Friday.  Come see the projects, the artwork, the dioramas.  Mostly, come to see the student growth.

I can assure you, that growth is impressive.

Kevin G. Smith, Instructor

Seventh Grade

LA: 7; CFL: 7; WH: 7