Surviving June

The end of the school year is just around the corner and you're hanging on by your fingernails! You teachers are up to your eyebrows in evaluation, paperwork, and activities. And inexplicably, you are seeing behaviours in your classroom that you haven't had to deal with since September. What's going on?

As a staff member, you may be starting to mourn the loss of the group you have worked so hard to create. Or you may be starting to worry about next year's group. Maybe you are changing grades or schools. Maybe you are losing a colleague or friend who is moving on. You are experiencing the stress of transition. Hopefully, after all these years on this ever-changing planet, you have developed some strategies for dealing with change.

Meanwhile, your students may be starting to mourn the loss of the group they have grown so attached to. Or they may be worrying about next year's class. They are definitely changing grades and maybe even schools. Maybe a close friend is moving away or going to a different school next year. They are experiencing the stress of transition. And if no-one guides them, how will they ever learn any strategies for dealing with change on this ever-changing planet?

Many of the niggling annoying behaviours of June are about anxiety. Kids will experience high levels of stress when they know change is coming but can't yet picture the new situation clearly in their minds. Even kids who would tell you they are not thinking about next year at all, will experience the agitation that comes with subconscious awareness of upcoming transition. Part of the end of the year needs to be about facing the changes that are coming.

The last thing any of us want is to be "fighting" with our kids at the end of the year when we should be enjoying them. So what can we do to ease the time of transition for all of us? Most importantly, we must model to the kids how we are dealing with the transition. It's important to say out loud when we are feeling sad about the upcoming good-byes. To say out loud when we wonder what next year will be like, who will be here and who won't. To say out loud, every day if necessary, that change is hard, but change is good.

We need to say that we are all in transition, that it causes feelings, and that our feelings don't have to leak out into cranky little behaviours, they can go elsewhere; into conversations about change, about last year, about next year, about how we feel. They can go into telling each other what we have appreciated and enjoyed. They can go into pictures and notes and cards and games and songs and dances . . .

We are all exhausted and nothing is more tiring than the prospect of change. Name it - for yourself and for your students. Put it out in front of you where you can work with it, or it will likely sneak up behind you and bite you in the . . June.


Monica is the author of "Thanks for chucking that at the wall instead of me."