The Second Semester Slide
Teachers and students across the world are coming back to school from a winter break.
After a couple of weeks of festivities, taking a break and ending the first semester of school, teachers and students hopefully return refreshed, recharged and renewed.
Things are so calm and sleepy the first few days back as everyone is re-adjusting to being back in the routine of getting up early and immersing themselves in the everyday demands of being back in the classroom.
I used to think to myself “Oh my gosh! The kids matured and everything that I tried to teach them the first semester has finally magically sunk in! “
Or…”Oh my gosh! Somehow taking a break, recharging and contemplating all that stuff about Santa and coal in the stocking has finally had a positive affect on the students! They are so well behaved and matured since I last saw them two weeks ago!”
It didn’t take long to realize that it was just temporary as the kids were really just sleep deprived, off schedule, still buzzing on a holiday sugar high or in a lingering euphoria from all the gifts they had received for Christmas.
Was the second semester doomed? Were things hopeless? Should I just give up on them and myself and the whole educational thing?
As my years of teaching went by, I came to fondly name the beginning of the second half of the school year when we returned after the Winter holiday break as the “Second Semester Slide”.
So, what do I mean by this?
The word “slide” can mean many different things.
The etymology of the word is from Old English slidan meaning to glide, slip, fall. (etymonline.com)
Some idiomatic expressions using slide =
to let slide, on the downhill slide, to slide in or out of…
It is also a noun used for the popular playground, theme park or water park equipment that is fun, exciting and exhilarating!
So, the Second Semester Slide depended on how I chose to view and approach the rest of the school year.
I could choose to view the ease in which we were “sliding” into the rest of the school year as being a smooth one because we had already laid the foundation and “greased the wheels”, so to speak, during the first semester. Piece of cake…just keep building on what we had already set as a foundation and easily “slide” into the end of the year like a base runner in the World Series Championship game.
Or…I could choose to see the second semester and just a continuation of all the slips and falls and failures we had on our learning journey in the first semester and give up, thinking, if they don’t know it by now, then, they are never going to learn it.
Or…I could reflect on the first semester’s journey and look at our slips, falls and perceived failures merely as opportunities to course correct and go in a different direction that might lead us where we need to go in order to have a positive and empowering rest of the year.
Just like the image of the slide on this post, is the slide going up or are we looking at the slide going down?
It’s always about perspective and choice.
As with everything in life, we can choose the lenses through which we wish to view the world, our experiences, our journey and our destination.
I chose to believe that we were easily sliding into the next learning step like that championship baseball player…that we were going to glide and soar into even higher achievement…that we were not going to fall, but rather slip into a more comfortable learning routine and journey as a result of the experiences we had the first semester.
Maybe it was a little like the cha-cha slide…fun moves, adding a little more steps and increasing the difficulty as we kept dancing.
Check out what I mean here in this music video of The Cha Cha Slide.
Have fun!
Image credit:
“Playgrounds: slide” by jonolist is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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