In the spring, our headmaster reminds us how this is a tremendously emotional time for seniors as they approach a significant ending of one life chapter / beginning of another. I overheard some parents (from another school) the other day rightly noting how much difficulty their kids are having holding themselves together. These kids are making a good faith effort to complete so, so many year-end capstone requirements from their classes and their school, on top of life events that matter like proms and sports and social events. Even seniors who try to be good citizens are being pushed to their mental limits in May.
What's my reaction to this (unfortunate, I think) feature of 2020s schooling as an AP physics teacher? I try to make my class one of the most fun parts of the students' day, full of camaraderie. I'm trying to cash in the culture building I've done for four years with these seniors at our school. For students who do want to leave the school on a positive note, those who want to work in good faith in each class, they are incredibly happy to be in a comfortable place where they can learn together. My P2 students are having fond memories of freshman year, when they prepared for AP physics 1 in a similar atmosphere; but their confidence is through the roof now in physics 2, and they know their classmates as true brothers* who've bonded over four years in classes with one another.
*I'm at a boys' school. You're likely gonna want to use the word "siblings". :-)
I know, teaching upperclasspeople is not all Care Bears and Smurfs. Teenagers trying to manage social and parental pressure plus their own boiling crock of hormones can behave in frustrating and nasty ways. I have to remind myself not to let my seething anger at a few students color my relationships with their classmates who haven't been nasty.
This year more than ever before, I'm getting the sense that most of my seniors are appreciative of their teachers, their classmates, our school. This is the class who entered my boarding school in the fall of 2020... right after they had been locked down for months. They were being denied the social contact that is so critical to all of us, but especially to young teenagers who are developing their sense of themselves and the world. This senior class seems more grateful than any class I've been around... because, perhaps, they've seen that teachers who care about them are in fact a force for good, not merely a set of jailers.
So in AP Physics 2, we do the "quizzes" that I've been posting each day, but not for grades. We do experiments where I join in as a regular lab partner. We sometimes just talk about things other than physics. This group has learned physics well; they are intrinsically motivated to be as ready as they can be for the exam. I, and they, can relax and enjoy our time together.
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