“Kristine” chants, fiddles, breaks her pencil lead.
Ignores the latest test.
Looks sad.
Her mechanical pencil will not survive this test.
I give her a yellow pencil.
The pencil is so not the problem, though, as a middle school student might say.
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Tension is baking off of Kristine in silent waves, as she kills graphite threads. The administration wants this latest writing test. But it’s another test. Test. Test. Test.
One way I know that our relentless measuring of knowledge has gotten out of hand: I am grateful Kristine is breaking her pencils instead of herself. It’s a teacher thing. When I see long-sleeves and pants on hot, muggy Illinois days, I wonder if a student is a cutter. Are there scars below those sleeves?
The tension out here has ratcheted up too. They are not OK, these pencil breakers.
Here are a few sobering facts from the CDC (Emergency Department Visits for Suspected Suicide Attempts Among Persons Aged 12–25 Years Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, January 2019–May 2021 | MMWR (cdc.gov)):
“During 2020, the proportion of mental health–related emergency department (ED) visits among adolescents aged 12–17 years increased 31% compared with that during 2019.”
Stress levels in some areas have become meteoric, especially among girls. I’d like the CDC or someone to explain this latest gender disparity, too:
“In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ED visits for suspected suicide attempts began to increase among adolescents aged 12–17 years, especially girls. During February 21–March 20, 2021, suspected suicide attempt ED visits were 50.6% higher among girls aged 12–17 years than during the same period in 2019; among boys aged 12–17 years, suspected suicide attempt ED visits increased 3.7%.”
Eduhonesty: I honestly don’t have the slightest idea how to explain what is happening to the girls.
I know Kristine is barely making it through the day and we have lots of Kristines.
I know it’s time to stop measuring so much and start nurturing our students more. Students can make up learning loss over time — but first they have to be peaceful and enthusiastic enough to engage with new material and optimistic enough to believe they should invest in their own futures.