First day of Christmas classes. This should be an easy week. My kindies were cute and we had a good time making snowflake cards. It was nice not to feel pressure to actually teach them anything.
I joined classes with another teacher for our Junior High kids. It makes me so thankful when I see her class cause they all hate being there so much and my kids are so cool about things...and way smarter. We threw sucker balls at the board for no apparent reason what so ever. We made Santa things and raced them down the table. We did a pin the nose on Rudolph thing that was sooo much fun...not. And we did a secret code puzzle. Pretty chill. Her class is so out of control and then mine are just standing there up against the wall, chilling. We had this new guy observing us, he even noticed the difference between the kids. When asked what he wants for Christmas from Santa, Yuichi replied, "I want time." He came into class draggin his tired butt, he's been studying for High School entrance exams. The new guy mentioned it as well, it's crazy that at 14 and 15 years old these kids are having to deal with some pretty major pressure that will impact the rest of their lives.
I wonder how much we put on ourselves in the way of pressure and how much truly matters. It makes sense that these kids are having to take exams that mean a lot because in the long run it will lead to the best opportunities for them in their lives (ie. good High Schools lead to good Universities which lead to good and theoretically stable jobs), but how much of that will really play out. If you don't get a good score the first time will it mean the end of the possibilities for a good life for these kids? Are there other routes that people can choose that will lead to success and happiness? There's so many examples of different possibilities that can arise in a person's life outside of the regular course of events that most people (especially here) view as the only option for success. If Yuichi doesn't do well on his exams in Jan and Feb, will that mean that he is permanently tracked for mediocrity (not that I think that child is capable of it, he's too fabulous for mediocrity) or could there be another route that would lead to a fabulous life?
