I realize I haven’t written much about coaching indoor track this season. I guess that’s because it’s been hard; the team is small, we’ve only been able to have one meet (we were scheduled for two more, but they both got canceled), and I’m usually tired at the end of the day. So... it’s not as fun on the daily as it usually is. Today was fun, though. Most everyone is back from covid/flu/whatever they had going on last week, and we were doing flexibility drills with low and high hurdles, and the girls were cracking up over nothing the whole time. That kind of joy’s infectious in a good way, you know?
Sadly, I won’t get to be at practice the remainder of the week because the next two days are half days for students (two 90-minute blocks each day, plus a break in between and lunch after; teachers can use them to hold regular classes or give final exams). So the team will practice at noon, but teachers still have work to do until 2:00.
I’m not giving a final exam in either of my courses. APGOV is year-long, not semester-long, so we’re just going to keep studying the Civil Rights Movement (today was all about the Freedom Rides, tomorrow’s all about the desegregation campaign in Birmingham in 1963). And my World students just have to finish revising their multigenre projects, so the class time is going to be theirs to spend doing that, plus any other revisions or make-up work they want to do.
I looked over a look of projects today, and everyone’s doing really well. My feedback, at this point, is just about polishing things up. What I’ve loved seeing is students who didn’t always take advantage of the time to polish their work in the past, and just settled for “it’s passing,” are actually continuing to revise. I’m confident they’ll all finish strong, which is the best way to end a course. I want them to leave feeling accomplished, and ready for whatever courses they take next.
It’s kind of hard to believe we’re at this point- several of the freshmen remarked that it came up fast once they came back from Christmas break, and I agree- but here we are!
