Another School Year, Another Yearbook

The 2014-2015 school year is over, but more importantly, the 2014-2015 yearbook has been delivered! On Friday, months of building the book and weeks of organizing the delivery of 355 books to 355 kidlets in about 25 1A classes culminated in a lot of happy 'tweens and one tired yearbook adviser.

It is our yearbook staff tradition to come to school at 7 a.m. on the last day of school to organize the books for delivery after the last final has been given. We count books, put them in boxes, count them again, and then have breakfast while we sign each other's books.

We still met at 7 this year, but before we could sort the books, we had to take a last minute addition into each one: a tribute to our sweet Chance who was killed in an accident in April.

I was a little worried about getting everything done before school started at 8:25, but the yearbook minions were awesome.

They got the pages glued in, books sorted, counted, recounted, and boxed with plenty of time to spare for a pre-test breakfast.

Two tests later, the yearbooks were delivered to all 1A classes via carrier-kidlet.

Forty-five minutes and twelve But-I-Know-My-Mom-Paid-for-One-back-in-September near-meltdowns later, the books were gone, the kidlets were gone, and I was excited to go home and have a night of of yearbook-nightmare-free sleep.

So as soon as my grades were finalized and I had turned my checkout form in at the office, I grabbed my yearbook and then went home.
 For twenty minutes.
Then I got bored and went back to see if Valerie needed any help with her checkout stuff.

The rest of the afternoon could have been mind-numbing start to the summer. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE vacation. It's just that I tend to suffer from a bit of whiplash going from the craziest school day of the year to no school at all.

Lucky for me, I had niblets around to keep me busy for the rest of the evening. I think the summer is off to a good start!

Adolescent Desk Disorder

Some kidlets just aren't designed for sitting in desks all day.

Take this little guy, for example.

It became pretty obvious early on in the school year that I was going to have to make a choice: spend the year trying to teach him to sit in a desk the way desks were designed to be sat in  OR spend the year trying to teach him how to be a better reader and writer.

Can you tell which curriculum option I went with?

He is a really good, fun, smart kid. He doesn't try to be bouncy or wiggly. He has never walked into class with the express goal of recreating a Cirque Du Soleil routine in the back of the room.

It is just that he can only really focus on one difficult thing at a time, learning or sitting.

He can sit in his desk correctly OR he can participate in the class discussion. 

He can keep his feet on the floor OR he can get his work done.

He can be engaged in the lesson, or he can keep his backside in his seat.

And that is ok because he is THIRTEEN.

Someday soon, the parts of his brain that can think critically, plan, and control impulses will kick in and then siting still and listening won't be mutually exclusive activities.

I hope.

But if not, he can always get a job working at the junior high with the rest of us adults who never quite mastered those sitting-still-skills.