Always, there is a moment in February where teaching gets a little tougher. The slog of January has worn us down. Kids have been cooped up under the grey skies of a long winter, thirsty for sunshine and fresh air. Me? I am just tired. Tired of the same old tricks, same old excuses, same old everything from the same old students. Rinse. Repeat. Stuck in the February Funk.

That is why, without fail, every Valentine’s Day, I sit my class in a circle for a major funk buster. Everyone has pencil and paper (boring Mrs. Cruden!) and writes their name at the top of their paper. We pass the papers around the circle, each person writing one positive AND specific thing they like about the person who’s name is at the top.

This is middle school. Groan. This is dumb! I don’t want to! Who cares? I am not doing it! Lame! Have you ever noticed everything at this age is exclamation points and question marks?

But I know the truth…

I know what comes after the final passing of the papers…that’s when the quick glances and sneaked peeks begin. Private smiles. The counting back of seats to see who may have wrote what. Kids awaken to a new sense of self, with whispers of “What? Me?”

And then, there is a quick shrug off. This is middle school. Back to “Whatever.”

Do they really care in the long run? All I know that I have never picked up a crumpled sheet at the end of the day. Nor have I have seen one in the garbage. Not this one assignment. This one somehow finds itself tucked in back pockets and taken home. To be treasured. Sunshine in their pockets.

But this Valentine’s Day? My students had left for the day. I sigh, happy to be out of my funk. I checked my computer and read the headlines:

Seventeen Students Shot in Florida High School. Always those headlines stop me from breathing for a moment. Seventeen lives taken. Seventeen families swirled into the chaos of loss. Not just seventeen, but seventeen MORE! When is this going to stop?

Tired is not the word. Funk was not the word. Anger. Much closer to the word. Furious, heart-wrenched and pained anger. What is wrong with kids? Parents? Schools? Society? Our country! As the list ran longer and longer and longer, I became more and more angry. Then more tired. Ending in stuck once more.

I spend the next few days stuck. Stuck in Facebook arguments about guns, society, and “kids today.” Stuck in thinking. Stuck in sadness. Stuck in anger.

And then, stuck in bed with the flu. I was really, really stuck.

Day five of the flu, I could not take my thinking any longer. I got out a sheet of paper. It was time to get unstuck. Time to think of what I can appreciate about what is good about our kids today instead of swirling about in what is not good in the world today.

Five Things Right with Youth Today

1. Youth today are learning to think for themselves. My favorite part of all the Common Core ELA Standards pertains to students deeply reading material and determining if it is opinion, reasoned judgment or fact-based. These skills will serve them well.
2. Youth today are learning to talk about emotions, to solve conflicts and to value themselves. Did you know OSPI is currently working on Social Emotional Learning Benchmarks for each grade level? I am so excited to see how this translates into their adult behaviors in the years to come.
3. Youth today are more tolerant of others. The strongest indicator of tolerance was the education one received. Check out the research here! Just one more reason teachers are important!
4. Youth today are getting better at delaying gratification. Really, it is true! In this Marshmallow Experiment, children offered a marshmallow were told if they can wait to eat it and get two or eat it immediately. Kids today are able to delay gratification by six more seconds than children of the 60s. Why is this a big deal? Kids that can delay gratification at a young age are able to control their impulses later in life.
5. Maybe the above explains why fewer teens are smoking cigarettes and marijuana than those in the 1980s? Also, more teens are planning on going to college than ever before, perhaps thanks in part to programs like College Bound and Gear Up.

Youth today are not perfect. No one is perfect. But, on Valentine’s Day, my students held in their little hands sheets of paper that told them something good about themselves. And I think it’s worth reminding all of us that there are good things happening with the youth of America, despite what we hear. Will this even begin to solve our crisis of school shootings? Maybe not. But I needed to get unstuck. And right now, it feels like we might all need a little sunshine in our pockets as we figure out what to do next.