Short Attention Span

Some of my fifth graders have excellent focus. There are a few students who constantly amaze me with the consistency of their determination and tenacity to get the job done.

Apart from the handful of focused fifth graders (oh, and my one exceptional 8th grader), it's safe to say that my students generally lack good attention spans. The other day I was explaining something to Jimmy (name changed, of course). I said, "First, click here," which he did. I said, "Type '=sum('... Jimmy... Jimmy... Jimmy... so are you going to type that or not?" In less than 10 seconds, he had completely zoned out.

Even students who ask me questions outside of class of their own accord can be incredibly distracted. One kid in the after school program asked me what I was working on, so I said I was working on a Flash game, and was almost done... did he want to see? But when I turned around, he had left because the snack being offered in the hallway had distracted him in about 3 seconds flat.

It's not just boys that get distracted, girls do too. In one of my classes I have three girls who gossip endlessly about this boy likes so and so, that girl's ugly new haircut, and what they are going to wear to the school party which is, like, the social event of the year, OMG. One girl told me today that she did not know what to do next so I referred her to the instructions. She scrolled through them so fast I couldn't even read them, then proceeded to turn to me and say, "Ok, I looked but I don't get it." I love my job (and I'm not being facetious).

Lately I've noticed that my attention span (which used to be pretty good, I think) has wained considerably. Watching movies is something I hardly do anymore, and even TV shows I find difficult to sit through. Hell, a movie on YouTube that's longer than 2 minutes better be *damn* interesting if I am going to make it to the end. I hardly write emails that are longer than 3 sentences anymore, and that's if I even write emails at all. I run around my apartment when I am on the phone because I can't seem to sit and chat. I can barely concentrate enough to write in this blog (which I've been doing less and less of... must get on that).

I know people always say that you can learn a lot from your students, but I never expected to pick up their habits! Yikes.