“I’m so excited. I want to start right now. Can I start right now?”

“Yes, Jess. You can start right now.”

I said yes even though I knew she was getting the cart before the horse just a bit. She wanted to start on the end before she even began the front. But she was energized, eager, motivated, and  I am not going to stand in the way of an inspired kid. It’ll work itself out in the end; the back and front will come together. For now, I will enjoy the eager energy of my kids as we begin our latest project, a project that an hour earlier did not even exist. Well, in a sense.

I was supposed to introduce our human experience project from WWII, giving kids an option to explore either the European or Pacific theater through multiple media lenses, but the closer we got to the start date, the less certain I was feeling about the project’s ability to sustain students’ interest for the remainder of the semester. We had already done a fair amount with both theaters, most notably reading Night and listening to our guest speaker Mr. Tamura speak of his family’s experiences in the Japanese Internment camps. The kids were certainly engaged and interested in both, but I worried about the long haul.

In addition, I had introduced a different human experience project to my honors kids the day before, and I knew it had both starting and staying power based on the kids’ reception. And by then, what was a minor concern quickly turned to full-fledged doubt, doubt that I could not hide from my grade-level partner Jenna Tamura.

“Not feeling it, T.” I told her yesterday morning.

Not feeling it is a dangerous place for me, for I can’t fake it, and I knew if I didn’t find the feeling, it would be a quiet disaster for me and the kids. And though I had sat down to talk out with her, I had already made up my mind. I was ditching the WWII project.

Not surprised (she knows I change as often as the weather) and a little disappointed, she accepted my wayward wanderings, and set to her own introspective search to determine her course with her kids.

What’s good is that the standards and the skill sets are basically the same for each project, so it doesn’t really get in the way of our common assessments. That much is intact. But what’s bad is a lot of work went into creating the WWII project, and now I was abandoning it. And I was sorry, not sorry.

I have to trust my gut, and my gut was talking, so I listened.

It said, “there’s not enough choice.”

It said, “You are going to milk too much of a good thing by sticking to WWII, the kids have reached a saturation point.”

It said, “You are not excited about teaching it.”

It said, “Your honors kids are getting a better deal, and you promised to give your regulars the same experiences this year. You promised.”

It said.

So, I changed. I always change–yes, as the weather. And while it no doubt drives my colleagues crazy, it drives me to better. I can’t help it. It’s who I am.

And after Jessie’s response to the project yesterday morning, I knew I was right to listen; I knew I was right to change, especially when at the end of the day, she bounced into my room, wanting to share the introduction to her documentary, “What is Love?” She already had a a few minutes or raw footage from her asking peers, teachers, and administrators the simply confounding question, “What is love.” It’s going to be fantastic.

Here are the bare bones of the project. I’ve never done it before, and so, as I told the kids, we will have to make adjustments along the way as we learn more, but for now we are on our way, and I am as excited as they.

Today’s Trail

Along today’s trail we will experience…

…connecting through Smiles and Frowns.

…exploring media to find “truths.”

…reflecting in our Journey Journals.

…hearing a Sappy Sy Rhyme.

Happy Thursday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.