Tuesday 17 February 2009

Stressed Out Kids

So I am nearly finished correcting the holiday homework (60 students...5 pages of writing each? That's a lot to read!)

Mostly it's been enjoyable reading. Some went on cool trips, others wrote really interesting stories, some just told me about their day. I like learning more about them. My students are cool people.

I noticed a strange trend while I was correcting. First of all, MANY of my students took TOEFL or similar English Language classes over the break. I can't imagine how I would feel if my parents had made me take classes during my winter holiday when I was in high school. I am all for working hard but people need to take a break now and then.

Anyway, I think I mentioned in this blog that we did a section on dreams and what different dreams symbolize last semester. Some of my students therefore decided to write about dreams they had. To me it looked like case after case of stress and being overworked, reflected in their subconscious.

One student dreamed that as she tried to come back to school there was nothing but huge stairs that she had to struggle to climb. She got so scared that she ran away. Another dreamt that he was being chased around school and he didn't know what was following him but he knew he just had to keep running. Another dreamt she was taking her TOEFL test and the test sheet was blank so she didn't know what questions to answer.
These are just the dreams I remember off the top of my head. I know there were more, and not every student even talked about dreams.

I don't know why I felt like talking about this other than I think it would be an interesting study to look at the dreams of stressed out students.


In other news I am teaching my students some note taking skills and to help them practice what I taught I gave them a sample lecture.

About X-Men. Aww yeah.

Love,
Stephanie

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