Posted tagged ‘middle school’
May 14, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W May 14, 2017
My wife Carol gets described in an assortment of ways. I was talking to a middle school teacher on Friday and I mentioned that I was married to Carol who works with the special needs students. The teacher’s first question was, “Is she kind of short?” When I said yes, she replied, “Ohhh…she is so nice!”
Our youngest daughter would come to me a few times over the years when Carol was in the midst of a situation that was raising her blood pressure and she would warn me, “Mom is about to go Italian!” Her maiden name was Faletti, and sometimes the “excited exuberance” of her father’s ethnic roots would rise to the surface. (Did you notice how I said that in a complimentary kind of way?)
But Carol has been a mom to a number of kids that aren’t related to us. Last year our grandson’s soccer coach presented her with a tee shirt at the end of their season with the team logo on the front…and “Number One Fan” emblazoned on the back.
Even though our kids have long since graduated, she attends Liberty High School athletic contests on a regular basis…basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball, swimming, football, JV contests, lacrosse…it matters not! From time to time she will even put her “Lancer Lunatic” shirt on that the students also wear.
When I went to coach at a different high school she adopted those players as some of her own. She prepared the fixings for the team dinner at our house, and chuckled from outside the circle as the players played “Mr. Boodle.”
Carol’s motherly nature, however, comes out as she helps students with special needs. A graduate from Texas Christian University, this Horned Frog got her degree in deaf education and taught preschool deaf kids for a few years before we got married. In recent years she has worked as a para-professional with the students at Timberview Middle School. If you are not familiar with the position, it takes a great amount of patience and energy. It also takes love and compassion. It takes putting the needs of the autistic student above your own. It takes the willingness to be sneezed on, change the diapers of twelve year olds, deal with parents who are rightfully very sensitive about their special children, having your hair pulled, being punched or pinched, and often not being considered part of the educational process by the administrators and teachers they rub elbows with.
But Carol’s motherly nature comes out as she walks down the hallway with the child who just needs someone to come alongside her. She is her advocate and protector as self-absorbed 8th Graders threaten to topple her over. When Carol comes home at the end of a school day she’s spent!
For years she was the Children’s Church leader at my last church pastorate. Kids would share their heart-felt burdens with her, as well as other problems. A typical Sunday might include everything from “My Granddad is really really sick and in the hospital” to “Pray for my dress, because I got peanut butter on it and my mom is going to be really really mad!” Carol listened with empathy and understanding. Many in the church never knew what a gift she was. They were just glad they weren’t being asked to do kid’s church! Since I retired almost a year and a half ago, I’m pretty sure…she misses those times of children gathering together in worship.
She is a mom to three grown children and “Grammy” to three grandchildren, and she is “Mom” to countless others who have passed through our home, her classroom, or even walked down our street.
She is a mom. It is what she is comfortable with. It is who she is!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: autism, autistic, children's church, going Italian, helping kids, Horned Frogs, Italian, Liberty High School, middle school, Mom, motherly, Mothers, Mr. Boodle, para-professionals, special education, special needs students, Texas Christian University, Timberview Middle School
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May 13, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 13, 2017
School field trips were always awesome! I remember my first one back in…1960! Our class went to the Royal Crown Bottling Company plant in Winchester, Kentucky. We discovered how they made the sugary drink and then each student received his/her own bottle to drink at the end of the tour. Awesome! RC Cola was our standard back in those days!
Field trips are no different today! In the past two weeks I’ve been a part of two 7th grade field trips. The first was an “educational” educational experience. The second was an “educational” experience to a minor league baseball game. Whatever and wherever class field trips take place some common elements exist.
1) There are attempts at adolescent romance! Mostly unsuccessful, mind you! You can see the hints of it on the bus ride. Most of the two person seats, which were mandated to hold three, get occupied by three of the same gender, but then there were the couple of seats where a boy wearing his dad’s borrowed cologne and a young lady who is trying to look like she’s twenty get scrunched together…happily! Whereas most of the bus passengers were counting down the minutes until they could unpack themselves these “couples” wanted these moments to last forever! They are now “an item!” At the baseball game I saw a couple of “roosters.” Game time temperature was 50 degrees (It did get warmer, but the forecast was for a high of 58 that day), and a couple of the young men wore tank tops to the game. They were proudly modeling their biceps, which must have looked bigger to them than they actually were. I watched, and was intrigued by, these boys, who did not pay one bit of attention to the baseball game going on. The young ladies crowded around them weren’t paying attention to the pitch count either. They were focused on whether one of the these guys was going to make a pitch to them. The next day a young boy, with one blonde hair sprouted on his chin like a dandelion, told me he had gotten the phone numbers of a couple of girls from another middle school. What???
2) There is money that is burning a hole in someone’s pocket! At the baseball game I heard one boy, who was surrounded by nachos, cotton candy, and a Pepsi, make the remark, “I have seventy dollars in my pocket!” He was like a concession stand high-roller! By the end of the game He had a couple of coins and a sick-looking expression on his face. I was glad to know that on the return trip he was riding on someone else’s bus. There were the students who hadn’t brought squat and those who had stopped by the ATM on the way to school. One student looked at me and with a high pre-puberty voice said, “Mr. Wolfe, guess how much I paid for this popcorn and Pepsi?” I gave up. “Twelve dollars!” I looked at him and asked, “Well, why would you spend that much?” “I needed to eat lunch!”
3) Someone will lose something! One frantic student ran to one of our bewildered teachers, “I lost my hoodie!” Several moments of desperation resulted before another students came up with the misplaced hoodie that had simply been left behind. One reason God created necks was to keep the heads of middle school students from getting lost from the rest of their bodies! I’m always amazed at how trusting parents are with cell phones for their sons and daughters who lose their math homework with regularity!
4) On field trips students often discover that their teachers are really people! My teaching partner, Ron McKinney, and I danced together in the midst of the educational establishment we visited. There was a peppy song playing in the background. The students discovered that their teachers could actually…get crazy! They discovered that their teachers could actually function OUTSIDE of the classroom! It was a scary moment for many of them! Scary also for Ron and me…because someone videotaped us on their cell phone! Where and when will the video resurface? We live in fear that the momentary lapse of our “teaching persona” will be discovered!
Categories: children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Graders, adolescence, adolescents, education, educational, field trip, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle schoolers, RC Cola, Royal Crown Cola, school bur rides, school bus, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school, young people, youth
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May 10, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 10, 2017
I have nicknames for many of the students I substitute teaching for. I’ve been in their classrooms enough that having a Mr. Wolfe-created nickname is a badge of honor…sorta’!
Bryson has become Bison, Marina gets called Marinara, Alex is Arby’s, Josh with his man-bun is “Pimple Head”, Jonah has become “Goat” (His choice! He says it is an acronym for “Greatest of all the rest!” I pointed out to him that the acronym would then be “Goatr!” He gives me a blank look…like a goat!)
I rattle off group nicknames also, like “Fruit Loops”, “Munchkins”, and “Space Cadets.”
Evidently, turn about is fair play, because a day of subbing in 7th Grade Science produced a new nickname for the teach!
Back in my high school days I was nicknamed “Beowulf” when my sophomore English class was studying the old story. “Bill Wolfe”… “Beowulf”…it stuck to me like a fly on a fly strip. In due time it got shortened to simply “Beo.” People I went to high school 45 years ago…no, it can’t be that long!…still call me “Beo.”
On this day of science discovery a new name was delivered my way. As my first class began trudging into the portable classroom of my friend, Ronnie McKinney (whose uncreative nickname is “McKinney!”), the pre-bell chatter began. One of the students who I had nicknamed “Abnormal” (Abigail is her real name) asked me how tall I was. I responded with “5’6” and 1/2.” Then I added, with a note of pride, “However, I used to be 5’8”!”
“So you’ve shrunk?”
“Unfortunately!”
Another young lady who I nicknamed “Camm-ay” (from Cammie), saying her name like she’s French, joined in the conversation. Since I refer to her as “Camm-ay”, she calls me “Wolf-ay!”
“Wolf-ay! You’ve shrunk?”
Another young lady, Ky-lay joins in. “Like a grape!” Wolf-ay is like a raisin!” Everyone laughs, and I even chuckle about the personalized humor.
“Wolf-ay has become all wrinkled!”
“It happens!” I admit.
Three minutes later as the class is about to begin there is laughter by the white board at the front of the class. I know something is up. I didn’t graduate from high school with a 2.4 GPA because I was stupid, mind you! I gaze at the board as the students clear out of the way. Camm-ay has drawn two pictures with a dry erase marker. The first one is an oval shaped figure with two stick legs. The picture is labeled with the words “Young Wolf-ay!” The second picture is also an oval shaped figure, but a bit leaner with a few lines squiggled through it. It’s a raisin! And the name beside it is “Old Wolf-ay!”
I chuckle at their humor aimed lovingly at me. During the course of the day and since I’ve been referred to as “Old Wolf-ay” and “Raisin” quite often.
Even as I write this I’m picturing the drawings…and I’m still chuckling!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Grade Science, 7th Graders, acronym, adolescents, Beowulf, getting shorter, middle school, middle school students, middle schoolers, nicknames, Old age, school, shrinking, substitute teacher, substitute teaching
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May 3, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 3, 2017
Dear Teacher and Students,
I am scheduled to substitute teach the 8th Grade Science classes next Monday. In preparation for the class I’d like to get an understanding of class expectations and boundaries…what is allowed and what isn’t! Please answer the following questions to help me facilitate an academic day that is similar to other days.
Q. 1- Is there an assigned seating system for the class?
Teacher: Yes, I will have each class charted for you indicating where each student is to be sitting. In several situations a student is seated at a certain desk/table for specific reasons.
Students: No, there is no assigned seating. Our teacher believes that students learn best when they are sitting with their friends. It promotes a class environment that is more relaxed and stress-free.
Q. 2- Are students allowed to eat food during class?
T: When they are involved in individual work, snacks are allowed. Do not allow snacks during class discussions, tests, or quizzes.
S: Absolutely! In fact, our teacher encourages it. His motto is “Food for the mind and food for the stomach!” Students pass snacks around to each other to promote a sense of classroom community. Once a month, in fact, the teacher orders Jimmy John’s for the class. Coincidentally that day comes next week when the guest teacher is here!
Q. 3- Are their any class restrictions on the use of electronic devices?
T: Yes! Students are allowed to use their devices when doing research that is dealing with the class subject matter. When doing individual work they may also use their devices to listen to music that they have their own set of earbuds for. Otherwise, devices are to be facedown on their deck or in their backpack.
S: Our teacher understands how “connected” his students are. Our smart phones can be used not only for research, but also to communicate to our friends. Once again, our teacher is more concerned with promoting a sense of community, and believes that restrictions on devices leads to isolation and ignorance. It shows his students that he totally understands us and our needs!
Q. 4- Does class end a few minutes early or the time posted?
T: At the assigned time and not a minute sooner!
S: Our teacher usually dismisses five minutes early to allow the students to visit the restroom, fill their water bottles, and get to their next class. Some of our classes are a long distance away, totally impossible to reach is we aren’t dismissed early! So if a class is scheduled to end at 9:30 he dismisses us at 9:25, and on snowy days 9:20.
Thank you for your time in answering these questions. It will help immensely in facilitating a calm and orderly class that is similar to what the students are accustomed to.
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th grade, assigned seating, class boundaries, class expectations, classroom, classroom rules, middle school, middle school girls, middle school students, school classroom, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school
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April 30, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. April 30, 2017
I was driving to school last week for a day of substitute teaching. I’m like an educational handyman…science class one day, language arts the next, physical education the day after, and social studies right before those. On this day I was headed for another day of language arts. As I approached the school I noticed one student crossing the street while looking at his cell phone. My first thought was “That kid could get hit and he wouldn’t even know it!” My second thought was “What is so urgent that it needs to be texted by a middle school kid at 7:00 in the morning as he’s crossing the street in heavy traffic?”
I’ve noticed it quite often. Students walking to school with their eyes focused on their cell phones. Cell phones have become what could best to described as “technological alcohol!” They are tech crack! People can’t live without them, but more than that, they can’t live without them for the next five minutes.
The school I mostly substitute teach at has a program called “Face Up/Face Down.” Students know that “face down” time means their devices are face down on their desks. When it’s ‘face up” time they can use their devices to look up information for class assignments or view relevant videos connected to their study focus.
But, you guessed it, the addiction to their electronic devices has resulted in “sneakiness” as a developed student skill. One young lady was sitting at her desk with her backpack in her lap trying to look studious whenever I looked at her. But I wasn’t born yesterday. Her backpack was in her lap, for crying out loud! I knew she was using the backpack to shield her cell phone from view. I let it slide for a few minutes and then in one practiced move she simultaneously put her backpack on the floor and slid her cell phone into her pocket. She asked if she could go to the restroom, and I said yes. In essence, she probably had to text someone about where they were going to sit at lunchtime in the cafeteria. When she came back and started to place her backpack on her lap again I told her to put her cell phone away…that, even though I’m old I’m not entirely clueless. I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck! In fact, I was once gifted in the art of sneakiness!
In a different class I confiscated three cell phones- placed them on the teacher’s desk for the rest of class- because one was posting on Facebook and two others were playing video games. Here’s the thing about a student using his cell phone to play a video game in class! Others become interested in watching him play the game. There becomes this little audience behind the student! It’s not bad behavior, just behavior that students know is not allowed in class.
The two students who were playing video games ratted out the girl who was posting on Facebook. I hadn’t noticed her!
A study conducted by the psychology department of UCLA on a group of sixth graders concluded that students who were deprived of all digital media for a few days did much better in recognizing emotions than students who were allowed access of digital media. One researcher made the comment that a student can’t learn emotional cues from a screen like he can from face-to-face interaction.
Digital media has its benefits, but, like anything that is consumed too much, it has become destructive. It’s like Lay’s Potato Chips…you can’t eat just one…and suddenly you real;ize that half the bag is gone! MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle agrees with how our digital addiction effects other things. In her 2015 book Reclaiming Conversation she makes the argument that cell phones are greatly affecting people’s ability to have deep conversations. She says that 89% of Americans took out a cell phone during their last social interaction, and 82% say that it resulted in a deteriorating of the conversation they were in.
A friend of mine who manages a hair salon told me that she instituted a digital devices ban for her employees when they are working. She had noticed that their focus wasn’t on the customer entering the store, but rather on their cell phones. They fought her tooth and nail on the ban, but now are realizing how much more interaction they are having with the person whose business they need in order for the store to stay in business and continue handing them pay checks.
Back to middle school! Let me tell you! Students think that substitute teachers are essentially clueless and won’t pick up on their device activity. But you know something? I’ve been there many, many years ago. Oh, it wasn’t a cell phone used in forbidden ways, but rather “the passing of notes” in class. I could pass notes with the best of them and not be discovered. Back in the day this Wolfe was a sly fox!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th grade, adolescents, being sneaky, cell phones, clueless, digital devices, face-to-face interaction, Facebook, gaming, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, Reclaiming Conversation, Sherry Turkle, sneaky, social media, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, Texting
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March 18, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 18, 2017
I needed Carol…but she had departed the house early for a day of being a para-professional with middle school students who have special needs.
Unfortunately, I had a special need also! It was St. Patrick’s Day and I didn’t know what to wear. Being color blind I couldn’t figure out what I could wear that had green in it. I was scheduled for an interview that morning at a school, so I couldn’t wear one of my Michigan State tee shirts. They were the only shirts I owned that I was sure had green because the Spartan’s colors are green and white.
I faced a closet full of mixed-up hues and vague hints of color schemes. They looked like a color calculus problem with no clear solution.
People don’t quite understand the effects of color blindness. They ask me what is it I see? I see what I see, but am often confused by what it is. As I approach a stoplight on a foggy morning I have to slow down to see which of the three lights is shining. If it is the bottom one I know I can go.
I remember when I was first diagnosed as color blind when I was in fourth grade. I was given a group of circles, each filled with dots, and asked to say the number that was inside the circle. A couple of the numbers were as clear as day, but a few of the others…in my view!…had no number in the middle. In fact, I thought it was some cheap school prank made to make me look silly!
I drive a white car! I can figure out white usually! But white is not green, and my granddaughter has informed me that people will pinch me if I don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. She had a smile on her face as she said it, like she was choosing the body part to grab hold of.
I settled on a new Roundtree & York shirt that looked like it could possibly have some green in the crossing pattern of lines and designs. There had to be some green in it! If I would have thought about it a little more I could have taken a selfie picture and sent it to Carol. Hopefully she would have a moment to view it before I headed out into a world obsessed with greenness.
At Starbucks I got looks! I checked my zipper! I was okay. My dense brain figured the looks were because of my favorite Starbucks cup, which is starting to look a little weathered in its whiteness.
Or maybe it was because I was a good-looking 62 year old man!
I thought I noticed one elderly lady looking at me and positioning two of her fingers into a tight position. I wondered if she was having a stroke! She wasn’t! I remembered my granddaughter’s words. This lady was ready to pounce…or, pinch my arm! I scurried to my white car!
But I had my new Roundtree & York green, brown, red, and blue shirt on! Perhaps this lady had a distorted kind of color blindness, like a color blind psycho…seeing things that aren’t there and not seeing things that are there!
St. Patrick’s Day is torturous!
After my interview, in which I got concerned looks at my color attire, I stopped at Carol’s school to check on something else with the athletic office secretary.
“You’re not wearing green today!”
“I’m not!”
“No!”
I flinched like she was about to pinch me. “This shirt isn’t green?”
She laughed deeply at my tainted tintness! I scurried home to the safety of my vacated residence…and changed shirts!
Categories: children, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: color blind, color-blindness, colors, hues, Michigan State, Michigan State Spartans, middle school, pinching, red-green color blind, Spartans, St. Patrick's Day, Starbucks, tints, vision
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March 11, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. March 11, 2017
I’ve coached basketball at Timberview Middle School In Colorado Springs for sixteen years. I feel very blessed to be able to do it. Once in a while my team has gotten scorched! This past Thursday we forgot to put our “hoops sun block” on. The result was a severe ego burn! Thanks to a three point shot at the buzzer we only lost by 29!
It was the third time this season my boys had played Mountain Ridge Middle School. The first time we were blitzed on their court by 30! The second time was in the championship game of our local tournament, and we closed the gap to 12! The third time was probably the worst because we are playing in our gym.
To their credit, this group of Mountain Ridge players has not lost a game in two years. To our credit four of the five games we’ve lost these past two years have been to Mountain Ridge.
What do you say to boys who are accustomed to strutting down the hallway on the next school day after a victory with a hint of cockiness in their steps?
Welcome to reality! As someone used to say “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the bug smashed on the windshield!” Life is filled with conquering moments and crushing defeats!
BUT…but we live in a culture that thinks their is always a villain in a defeat! People look for scapegoats in losses. This past week the same Mountain Ridge team had played a different school that they also defeated. The next day the person who assigns officials to middle school games got a call from the school’s athletic director complaining about the officials. They had called four fouls on the school’s best player in the first quarter! It was unfair! They were obviously biased! There was no recognition of the coach’s or player’s responsibilities in the situation. Why did the coach leave him in, not only after his third foul, but after his second foul in the first quarter? What about the player’s responsibility to NOT FOUL?
As a coach I’ve been exalted and also vilified! Some have seen me as the best thing since sliced bread and others have wanted to slice me up like bread!
A different team I coached recently got off to a really bad start against a team that ended up winning our league that season. I called time out three times in the first quarter trying to escape the tsunami! Why hold on to them? If you are getting beat by twenty in the first quarter those timeouts aren’t going to do you a bit of good at the end of the game!
Sometimes we’re just the smashed bug on the windshield! My players probably get tired of me saying it, but after a loss I talk about what we can learn from the experience. When you get scorched there are plenty of teachable moments to refer back to.
The team I coach this season has a number of very talented players who haven’t learned how to play well with each other. That’s been my challenge. They hear me harping on them about offensive possessions where there has been just one pass and then someone launches a three point attempt. They hear me spout off “the lesson of the moment” about “If you can get that shot after one pass you can probably get the same shot after five passes.” They are a good team that makes one great play, but then forgets what they’re suppose to do on the next in-bounds play.
They make me look at what I need to do to be a better coach! They are a team that isn’t used to losing, but taking a loss is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you for the long journey!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Basketball, basketball coach, basketball officiating, coaching, defeats, getting beat, learning, middle school, middle school boys, middle school sports, middle school students, sports
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February 27, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. February 27, 2017
My new career as a substitute teacher had a new twist to it last week. I was my wife’s supervisor…yes, her boss! I watched her every move, yelled at her constantly, told her exactly what she needed to do…NO!
I was subbing for the teacher of the special needs students’ classroom. About eight para-professionals who work with the students looked to me for direction…and did not receive it!
They went about their routines and responsibilities and I just kind of hung around and tried not to get in the way. They were all highly-skilled women who showed extreme patience with the students with special needs and limitations. One of the students got a grasp of the hair of a para. She patiently and gently untangled his fingers from her hair. Another student had an expletive-laced episode and his para calmly reminded him such language was not acceptable, and then, without missing a beat, got him focused on the academic work he was to do.
Amazing women doing an extremely difficult job for limited compensation! Amazing women who treat their students with care and respect, give hugs when needed, stern direction when necessary, and encouragement constantly.
And so I was the teacher! One of the days I led the students and their sidekicks in “adaptive physical education.” We played a version of dodgeball that I came up with called “The Fox and The Hounds.” The dodge balls were small and soft, the students sat on floor scooters, and I encouraged them to throw their dodge balls at the two “peer partner” students. In other words, they were to be the hounds “chasing the foxes.” One student who is immobile and wheelchair-bound also became the target. He squealed in delight at being included in the chase as his para pushed him around the gym in his chair.
The paras let me lead that experience, but they made it happen. They made it an enjoyable time of recreation for the students.
For the rest of that day I stood in the background and watched those I was “the boss” of do their thing. I saw autistic students figuring out problems, strong-willed students having face-offs with their paras who would not back down from the tasks that needed to be accomplished. I saw paras helping students into the bathroom, and I was thankful that such a responsibility was outside my qualifications. I saw students being re-taught how to feed themselves- a process that was being re-learned for the hundredth time!
The evening after I was my wife’s boss I saw her with a new appreciation. She has always had a heart for children and youth, graduating from TCU with a degree in deaf education, teaching deaf pre-schoolers, working with kids at church, and, for the last several years, coming alongside special needs students at our middle school. She is amazing and I will never, ever, never really be her boss!
Categories: children, Humor, marriage, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adaptive physical education, autism, autistic, autistic students, education, helping special needs students, middle school, para-professionals, patience, special education, special needs students, special olympics, students with disabilities, working with special needs students
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February 12, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. February 1, 2017
I’m becoming a seventh grade substitute teaching fixture. Two more days this past week to follow closely on the heels of the three weeks of seventh social studies. I’m starting to begin sentences with “Dude!”, and trash-talk with seventh grade athletes about sports teams.
Dude! It is making me see things in new ways!
One of those “new views” is the unmistakable seasoning of cynicism amongst the young audience. Although they are not proficient in understanding politics they are cynical about politics. They’ve picked up on the unrest of the nation from the recent political campaign, and wrestle with the confusion of the allegations hurled from each side of the arena. Perhaps part of their misgivings grow out of a statement that they’ve been hearing for a long time; that we live in the best country in the entire world, and have the best governmental structure. They’ve been hearing that, but are wondering why the citizens of this best country spout so much venom at one another over politics?
In fact, much of seventh grade cynicism emerges in questions that begin with the word “Why?” They don’t quite get it! Of course, neither do I! I just try to look like I understand!
Their cynicism is a foggy picture that reflects their parents beliefs and unbeliefs. They’ve heard the resistance towards immigrants, the absurdness of building walls, the plight of the poor, the dangers of terrorism, and the 4,000 piece puzzle that’s a picture of health care and insurance.
Seventh graders have become cynical about the world so they turn their attention to their immediate situation and environment. Yes, they heard that the unemployment rate went up, but there’s a school sock hop this Friday night that needs their attention. They heard about a school shooting in Oklahoma, but the new Chick-Fil-A opened up down the street. The President is coming through town for a speaking engagement, but the seventh grader just realized that he forgot to put a pudding cup in his lunch bag!
Schools stress an understanding of what is going on in the world…and rightfully so…but thirteen year olds yield to what their friends think. Their cynicism makes them skeptical of pure motives. They live in a world of hidden agendas. If I cut my neighbor’s lawn because he’s out of town these newly-arrived teens are wondering why I did it? What am I getting out of it?
In essence, we have made them who they are. They are the “Mini-Me’s” of our lives!
Sounds hopeless. And yet, there are certain people that have the distinct privilege and opportunity to ground our young people in social responsibility, compassion, and lives rooted in principles and purpose. For example, as a middle school coach for close to twenty years I understand that my players look to me for guidance, but also what my life conveys is truly important. Last week I told my 8th Grade basketball team that any detentions or behavior problems that require school administration involvement will automatically carry at least a one game suspension for the player. I told them that character is more important than athletic ability. I expect them to act responsibly and make wise decisions. I realize, on the other hand, that they are looking at me to make sure I’m acting responsibly and making wise decisions.
A few years ago I was camp pastor for a middle school church camp. One night we washed each other’s feet. It was a silent act. No words were said and it was strictly voluntary. For about thirty minutes, after I and another leader began the humble act, students would invite one another to the front and serve one another in a way that humbled the washer and honored the one whose feet were being washed.
In some ways that’s where we need to take seventh graders more often…to a place of service and humility. Dude! Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Categories: children, Christianity, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, love, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adores, coaching, cyncism, cynical, cynics, middle school, middle school boys, pure motives, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, skeptics, teachers, teaching, young people, youth
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January 31, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. January 31, 2017
I’m a little grieved today…a little down in the dumps so to speak!
No, it isn’t my Spartans! They beat Michigan on Sunday! Yes!!!!! It isn’t the weather. Today is suppose to hit 60! Who can be grieved by sixty degrees on the last day of January except a polar bear!
Today I’m not teaching seventh graders about world governments! That’s why I’m a bit grieved.
For many of you, especially parents who have a seventh grader, such a statement about missing the flatulence, body odor, and squealing of seventh graders qualifies as lunacy. At a multitude of moments in a typical school day I would agree, but there were other stretches of awesomeness that drape over the annoyances.
Yesterday was my last day of a three week substitute teaching position in Room 306, otherwise known as “out in the portables!” Three weeks of teaching 120 seventh graders about supply and demand, the value that we place on moments and experiences, and finally…the variety of world governments and what we can learn from them.
At their core middle school students have not changed since I was a short spectacled seventh grader at Williiamstown (WV) Junior High in 1966. Twelve year olds are still goofy, uncertain, giggly, diverse, comfortable and uncomfortable with themselves as they’ve always been. There are the hard workers, the pretenders, and the indifferent.
They ask goofy questions and yet are surprised by the answers:
“Mr. Wolfe, I have A’s in all my classes except this one and one other. Why don’t I have an A in Social Studies?”
“Well…I think you need to understand that A does not stand for “average!”
Envision mouth dropping open in disbelief!
“Mr. Wolfe, you can call me LeBron because I am the greatest!”
“Well, I’m pretty sure that LeBron’s letter grade in seventh grade social studies was probably at least three levels above you!”
“Mr. Wolfe, do I have to take the quiz today?”
“Well, let’s see! Let’s analyze the situation. First of all to take the quiz requires that you be present…and you’re here! And second, everyone else is taking the quiz today…so I’m going to go with “Yes!”…final answer…and I don’t even need to call a friend!” (Yes, sarcasm comes in handy with 7th graders, although I’m not sure if the asking student understood the reference to “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”)
At the end of my last day it was a bit gratifying to have several students ask me with pleading voices if I would come back and sub in their classes?
So today I’m missing them! Well, there were a few who were like leeches, parasites whose purpose was to suck the blood out of you, but the other 115 students pumped life into me.
So what will I do with my day? Oh, that’s right! I have 7th Grade girl’s basketball practice this afternoon!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: education, educators, middle school, middle school students, school, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, social studies, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, supply and demand, teaching
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Words from WW Blog 