Boundaries

Letting my students normalize is so frightening. We've made classwork much more child-directed and have really backed off of the "you must do XYZ." Not surprisingly, many of the students have taken this to mean, "WOOHOO! I don't have to do anything at school!" It is unnerving as a teacher to watch students spend whole afternoons doing finger weaving and art projects while the math and language shelves languish unattended. Still, I am confident the children can learn to use their time wisely and will come out of this euphoric state of doing nothing for the sake of doing nothing, though in the meantime it is decidedly uncomfortable.

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Case Study
Take JS for example. She has done some good language works on her own in the last couple of weeks - writing sentences for analysis and staying on top of her green reading phonics, but then she has a day like today where she does one "academic" work and then spends the rest of the day doing nothing -or what I pessimistically call 'nothing.' She did an art project and spent HUGE amounts of time both in the morning and the afternoon doing handwork - finger weaving, only not really, in the morning and making 'dust bunnies' in the afternoon. Is this work she is proud of? I know that my view of the situation really colors my interpretation of the facts, and I'm trying to see the other side of it.