Day-light savings and students

Like looking out of a hotel room window, not knowing where you are
Well. Apparently, yesterday was supposed to be "The Groggiest Day" of the year. I guess for adults it would be. However, kids sometimes have different reactions. For example:

Tutoring Student #1's session yesterday went something like this:

Me: (notices student is particularly slow and listless - not just about writing the problems, but in terms of his mental gymnastics; he's usually very good at mental math) What's up with you today? Are you ok?

TS#1: Yeah.

Me: (I'm not convinced) Are you sure? Nothing making you feel down?

TS#1: Yeah.

Me: Is it because of day-light savings?

TS#1: Yeah. (a little sheepishly) I thought it was going to be "fall back" the time again, so I thought I could stay up a little later. But nope, I made a mistake.


Tutoring Student #2 had a completely different reaction to Spring Forward. She was literally bouncing off the walls and I had to call her back to earth several times.

TS#2: So then, the green has more votes than yellow. But votes for blue and red together is more than green! I love tally marks! They are so easy!

(We were working on statistics and mean, median, mode)

Me: Good. When math starts feeling like it's easy, that means you are getting better.

TS#2: I'm getting better! I love getting better! I love the color blue! I love the blue sky! I love swimming under the blue sky!

Me: Um, okay.

It was funny and annoying at the same time. It must be how some people think of me when I'm in a certain kind of mood. A near-hysterical one.


Tutoring Student #3 of the day wasn't so affected, probably because he was my last student of the day and it was getting late. Also, he hasn't been improving the way his mother wants him to, so they are thinking of stopping tutoring. Which doesn't really make sense to me, since he wasn't improving AT ALL without it. Also, I've only had this student for about a 1.5 months. Improvement takes time - especially when you are in 9th grade and have deep-seated reading comprehension issues.

In any case, my last session was more sobering. I don't envy classroom teachers this week. Although, apparently, some schools are already on spring break. In that case, props to the administrator who decided to have spring break the week after day-light savings begins.