There is a lot of tension in my classroom at this time of year – and I recall the same situation arising last year, at the same time.
I know that, for myself, I can identify several factors that contribute to this tension, which is certainly unpleasant.:-
1. I am just ‘hanging out’ to get to that Christmas break in 1 & a 1/2 wks time – knowing that I really need a break.
2. There are some tasks that accumulate, because they are hard to finish off – you know: the things that go in the ‘too hard’ basket, and you always think you’ll get to them ‘tomorrow’? Well – when it gets to the end of the year – and the prospect of a beautiful restful break and a fresh start in the new year – the last think I want to carry forward with me, are any of these difficult tasks which are already a couple of months overdue. SO: I put the pressure on myself to get them all finished off.
3. Meanwhile, I also feel that I must infuse the classroom with Christmas spirit and cheer – put up decorations (my own, lugged in from home), create Christmas Learning Activities (which of course the students MUST enjoy doing – haha!……………), organise the students Christmas party (which means, initially, prompting them to organise it themselves – because, after all, they are all adults – and then finding that no-one is doing a damn thing, nor are they willing to, unless prodded forcefully….in this case, by my wonderful volunteer ……….- because *I* got so stressed by their attitude that I couldn’t trust myself to talk to them about it any more), remember to buy appropriate gifts for my volunteers, and meanwhile, I am usually forgetting to attend the odd Christmas party that I have been invited to, myself, because I am so focused each day on whatever work obligations are right in front of me, that I simply forget that I have any life outside of the classroom at all – beyond my treasured animals, anyway.
4. This one is important: the students, I presume, get tired too, and are also ‘hanging out’ for the holidays. This means they withdraw their participation, and sit there like bored or antagonistic children, expecting to be entertained all day, without actually being willing to engage much, at all. Of course this is a generalisation – and certainly DOESN’T apply to some. But it applies to enough of them, that it is a group problem, rather than an individual problem.
5. Of course, all the time, we are getting new students, and in the last 6 weeks or so, our rate of acquisition of new students has really taken off (due to increased referrals from the government unemployment service). We used to get about 1 new student every 6 to 8 weeks – but recently, we have been integrating, on average, 2 new students each week. This is WONDERFUL, in my view…….but I raise it here, because one of the effects of acquiring new students, is that the group dynamics always change whenever anyone new enters the group. Therefore, now that I have a small group of ladies behaving in a relatively uncooperative manner (ladies who didn’t do this before) – and that group of ladies includes 1 new member, who is quite a loud and assertive person - it occurs to me that the problem with that group may be because of the influence of the new person… or it may be because of the factors mentioned above (higher up the page). Hard to tell, when things change all the time.
For myself, one way I would sum it up, is that I am trying extra hard, not just to finish off the difficult stuff (even though I am tired), but to ensure that the students have a good time because it is Christmas. It doesn’t work. In fact, it feels like they dig their heels in, and refuse to come to the party (literally! – see below) – which stresses me more, and the cycle of worsening classroom dynamics spins faster…
‘See below’ means HERE: where I note that the majority of students literally declined to attend the Christmas party, at the stage when the students were ‘organising’ it themselves. Almost every student came up with an excuse, even though the party will be held in class time, when they would usually be required to be present in the classroom. And this was after we had, as a group, selected the day that was the most convenient to the majority of them…If I were reading this, I would be suspecting that these students (being written about) don’t like each other and don’t want to socialise together, or were expressing resistance to the organising student, or to the teacher, by being so ‘difficult’. I don’t believe that it’s either of these reasons.
I think they’re just unwilling to do anything out of the ordinary – even if it is supposed to be for pleasure.
I know I have observed before, that organising these students is like herding cats…and that’s even IN the building…let alone outside. But it is disappointing to see that asking them to do anything for anyone else – including their classmates - really brings out the worst in them. Again, this is said with some notable exceptions. But the scarcity of exceptions really underlines the norm for the group.
Meeting social expectations is a relatively alien concept to these adults, and I hasten to add that I am not referring primarily to migrants or refugees or newcomers to ‘our’ Western social expectations, but rather – mostly – to people who have lived in this society all their lives and have functioned within a very narrow local orbit.
Last year, only 2 students attended our Christmas waterside picnic, which was on the last class day…all of the others took the opportunity to take the day off without notification, despite knowing of the planning effort that had been put in, to arranging the event and food and drinks and so on… I assume that each one thought that they could be absent and ‘everyone else’ would still be there… alas, it wasn’t so!
Perhaps I should backtrack and have a look at what I wrote at this time of year, last year……maybe that would help me get a bit of perspective on this pre-Christmas malaise.
