The Week of Too Much

We've all had the week of too much.  We have too much to do and not enough time.  We have to much stress and not enough sleep.  We do a lot of complaining about the week of too much, but we get through it.  We don't die.  The world doesn't stop spinning on its axis, and we realize that we are not as weak as we thought.  That lesson then must be learned again by having another week of too much.

The week before Thanksgiving break is often the week of too much for our students at GRACE.  No teacher wants to ask them to hold information in their heads while their brains turn to mashed potatoes and they slip into a tryptophan coma, so we mostly plan their tests during the week before Thanksgiving.  They worry and complain.  They stress themselves, their teachers, and their parents out.  They feel like they are going to die.   But you know what?  They don't.

Just like we don't die when we have a week of too much, middle and high school students also don't die.  They come out on the other end, realizing that they are stronger than they thought they were.  This is a valuable and important lesson, and it would be wrong for us to rob them of it by giving them what they say they want.  It is important to go through stressful times because they train us for more stressful times down the road.

Last week, my students got to hear a veteran from Iwo Jima speak the day before Veteran's Day.  One of the things he said that stuck out to me was about a time near the end of his training.  He was dropped at an unknown location and given the address of a different location.  He had to get there.  They provided no help and no rescue.  This probably sounded mean to the students who were listening, but I thought about how prepared he was for the same scenario should he encounter it in Japan.  It seems mean that me give our students a lot of tests / projects in one week, but the reality is that they will be better prepared for those times inevitable to adulthood than they would be if we didn't.

No one likes to see their kids stressed, but a certain amount of stress is needed.  It is needed to prepare their brains, their stamina, and their energies for the future.  Chronic stress is bad, but brief periods of acute stress are actually necessary for building strength.  Support your students through the week of too much.  Listen to their complaints and empathize with them; but do not take away the valuable stress they are experiencing.  If you do, they will fail during their adult weeks of too much.