Yesterday way was a true Friday, right? Restless adolescents in the middle of winter with too many teachers jawing at them about stuff they are truly too young to appreciate and whose minds were not really on learning and mostly focused on being teenagers.
I just want to share something from today. I don’t generally wear crowns but in a joking moment today a colleague put a foam crown on my head. I just kept it on in all my classes. My interaction with the kids turned out to be of different quality all day because of that crown. It was so relaxed.
The kids would walk into my classes, look at me out of the corner of their eye, take a photo, make a comment, and laugh. One severely withdrawn kid started laughing. I have never seen him laugh all year. That one laugh justifies my entire career.
Anyway, just thought I‘d share. Of course, I never would have done that in the fall. Their perception of my crown would have been different then. I now have crafted enough discipline to alow my being a bit more relaxed with them.
Try it. I may even wear that crown every Friday for the rest of the year. It was fun to relax and laugh with my kids on a Friday.