The backstory: I teach an Advanced Placement Government course to 12th graders who are students in a school with grades running from pre-school to the 12th grade. Each year, a select group of our graduates are receiving diplomas from the only school they've ever attended. They first began pre-school here at the age of 3 and now, at the age of 18, they will leave for college. That's a long time to be in one place and we call these kids "lifers." Like every other AP Government student in the nation, my students will take their big test on May 15. I must finish teaching all the course material before then (and I do) and after that test date, the class is on a slow slide to the end of the school year (the last day of classes for us is May 25). The other day, the students wanted to know what we would be doing in class when the AP test was over. Experience has taught me that I should be vague about this period of the course, mostly so that they have some incentive to show up and avoid checking out.
Me: "We'll do something that I think will be fun. And whatever we do, you must at least pretend to care."
Student K: "Don't worry. I've been doing that for 15 years."
It might be time for K to move on.
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