Let Them Eat Vegetables

Some of my students, the group that’s been making me so depressed this year, wish to stay together in their (our) group at the end of the school year. They feel good together, or some of them do. I think the majority of them have started being nice to each other, and I don’t know how to feel about the fact that they’ve rarely been nice to me. I feel a bit guilty about breaking them up (I mean, who am I to complain about being treated badly by students), but I keep going back to the fact that they exclude a boy in the class who has been very, very unhappy. They can’t spare him a nice word, and so I go back to feeling convinced that this is the right move.

I also keep thinking that we shouldn’t necessary let kids do what they want all the time. Kids would like to eat cake all the time, but we make them eat healthy things. They want cake, they want to stay together, but in the end I don’t think it’s the healthiest option.

There is often nothing you can do about an uncomfortable situation, but here I can. I can try to protect the ostracized kid. I can try to protect the three or four others who don’t feel good in this group, and I can try to protect myself. I’m protecting a minority in the face of a majority, but I’m the only one who can do anything about it.

So it goes. Let them eat vegetables. I just hope after all this that the administration isn’t lulled into listening to them.

Just to mention something else; it’s June and I still haven’t taken off Foro’s sweater! It’s been chilly up until now, 13°C today, and rainy. I don’t want him to catch cold so he’s remained in his woolies.