"Keep Your Head Up"

One of my co-op's biggest pet peeves is when students fall asleep or put their heads down in class. It seems like a sign of disrespect and laziness and she's not alone in taking offense to this act. I never put much thought into the issue until today. It's such a shame that most of them time we fail to put thought into things unless they have some direct impact on us, but such is life. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is...

I haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately. By that I mean, I haven't been able to sleep in days. I wake up every 5 minutes, roll over, groan at the time, close my eyes and pray that this time I'll be able to sleep until morning. I don't think I've gotten more than 2 solid hours of sleep a night, for a number of reasons, and it's draining me. I find myself in conversations, completely listening and trying to digest the information, but unable to recall what happened. I find myself zoning out. Even now as I write this, I can barely focus.

For the first time, I am beginning to understand why these students keep their heads down. They're not being intentionally disrespectful. How can we expect them to learn about themes, imagery, big ideas, and characterization when even keeping their eyes open is a struggle? For whatever reason, these kids aren't getting enough sleep and it's wearing on their academic life. I feel like, at some point, we've all had those days where we know no matter how hard we try nothing is going to get done. We get tired, we get frustrated, and we check out. It's normal. It's natural.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this (probably because in the last week I've gotten the same amount of sleep most people get in a night) but I just wanted to throw it out there that there are so many factors that go into classroom behavior. It's not always disrespect.

Sorry that was so incredibly awful. To be honest, I knew I had to write a post yet this week, and in the half-awake state I'm in, this was the best I could offer.