With 16 days left of school I feel I am at my wits' end. I am being snippy w/ my students ('course they've been snippy w/ me all year...), crabby, exhausted, and just OVER IT.
I am frustrated at the point my students are at, becoming 8th graders in 3 short weeks. I don't feel like they have learned strategies to cope. They continue to want me to show them how to do things, basically to the point of doing it for them. But I'm NOT doing it!!! I am really backing off and letting them make mistakes, reminding them that they should have listened in class, read the directions, saved their notes, studied, etc. No more spoon feeding. Period. It will only set them up for failure next year.
Today our math lesson had the students cutting out "nets" to create cylinders, pentagonal prisms, and triangular prisms. I repeated several times that the students should cut out the shapes as one whole unit (not cut off the top and bottom circles). I even SHOWED them how it should look and yet I still had a student who did exactly what I warned them not to do!! And, I did not fix it for them or give them another sheet! I reminded them that they should have listened to the directions and that the only way I could have done more to help them avoid the mistake is if I would have cut it out for them, which I was not about to do for an almost 8th grader.
I know this shouldn't be a big deal, but I am just so tired of how much students want you to do for them. It makes me feel like I've failed them that they still want me to hold their hands and walk them through each step. I am determined that I will do better next year at teaching study skill strategies, rather than focusing on how to do individual problems.
