Recharged for the stretch run

It was so nice to have to have 10 days off in a row. Yes I know I missed just about 4 weeks, but my strength and stamina have been slow to return since my surgery in March! Though I am feeling much better, I've had some pain and discomfort from scar tissue and have been really quite fatigued. So having this time (with no student work accumulating) was nice. The weather was good and that helped too. After the vacation we are looking at 37 school days left with only Memorial Day as any type of break.

Spring, and May in particular, is my favorite time of the school year. You are starting to see the students you have worked with all year grow and mature and achieve a degree of success. The days are longer and warmer and flowers bloom and the grass turns green. You are seeing AP courses wind down as students take AP exams. You also have the Model United Nations Conference  to look forward to. As a teacher of Juniors and Seniors, they get distracted for a few days leading up the prom. Once every four years, it also become a distraction for me as a Junior Advisor who must put on the prom!

We held this years prom at the Governor Hill Mansion in Augusta just as we did four years ago. This beautiful building is a great place for the prom. It needs very little decoration or sprucing up and is located nearby. It doesn't feel like school at all and I think that lends itself to what the prom represents in some ways as a move toward adulthood. It's always a long night and usually we have to say no to plans with friends in order to attend the 4 hour dance and dinner before. This year was no exception as we missed out on a dinner Birthday party for a friend of ours for the prom. My wife and I received text messages from our friends who were having fun while we chaperoned the prom. But considering its only once every four years and I have a great group of co-workers to do this with, it's not really a big deal. This year's theme was Star Wars, and so we definitely had some fun with it! (Prom photos below)

There was some academic stuff going on this week, it wasn't all just prom and games! In my Ethics class, I had a guest speaker who discussed nursing and medical ethics. My friend Sara Casey has visited my class for a couple of years now and she always does a nice job of portraying ethics in the medical field and providing interesting stories for my students. The students asked great questions and we all learned a lot!

In my Psychology class we have been discussing consciousness and played the game "The Exquisite Corpse" to illustrate the potential of the unconscious and different ways people have tried to tap into it.

My AP classes have been wrapping up content in an attempt to prepare for the AP exams about to unfold. In my Honors US History class we started planning a Memorial Day Assembly to honor the sacrifice of two local soldiers killed in World War Two. My students learned about PFC Harvey Madore of Augusta and Captain Joseph Berry of Wayne. Now they will plan a brief but impactful assembly for the school to tell their story and honor their sacrifice. This is connected to my participation in the Understanding Sacrifice program and my summer trip to Europe to visit the graves of these Fallen Heroes. I look forward to this great experience!

The next big event will be the Model UN Conference in Boston. This will happen on May 13. This year we are taking 22 students to Northeastern University to participate. We are representing Russia, Qatar, and Togo. We travel farther than any other school, most are pretty local to Boston. Unfortunately they are now only running the Conference one day to better accommodate those schools even though it now becomes a bit less of a good investment for us as a result. We will be thinking about how well this goes and maybe looking at alternate plans in the future or rethinking how to do this conference. Either way, our students should do well, have fun, and hopefully learn a lot!

I find myself with mixed feelings as I definitely enjoy the warm and sunny weather, but also dread the malaise that inevitably comes from my students as a result. 32 days left!