So close...

...and yet so far. For pretty much my entire life this time of year has been a time of counting down the days until summer, or graduation, or leaving Germany, or moving to South Dakota. And now I find myself counting down again to the end of the school year. As per usual I feel like there is far too much to do and fit into the last weeks of school, and at the same time absolutely cannot wait for it to be over.

Today I actually felt like I have taught my students to be better readers for possibly the first time this semester. All my classes are loving "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" and having a text that they are so engaged in makes all the difference. Even though we're still covering the same literary elements we did while reading "The Most Dangerous Game" and other texts, they seem to suddenly be actually getting it. Maybe it's the repetition, but I really think a big part of it is that with this book I actually have their attention! Finally they seem to getting how characterization works and they're able to point out examples and write and talk about it! And they're so good at finding similes and metaphors and explaining what they mean! They can even apply those skills to reading their own book independently! Amazing! It's like I'm really teaching something! remarkable.

After that teacher high in my morning classes the rest of the day was a pretty horrible let down. The entire school, k-12 participated in a completely unorganized and last minute "community clean-up" all afternoon. Which basically meant hundreds of children and teens were set loose on the town with very little reason or motivation to do any cleaning or stay together or anything else. On the plus side, it was a lovely day out and at least some trash got picked up, so who am I to complain?