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By Kari Alderman, Middle School Head


Happy New Year!

Welcome to our new website and my first principal’s blog!

It is my hope that this monthly article will seem like an informal conversation we might have in the hallways, my office, or even the grocery store.

Third Quarter Blues

The start of the New Year for us adults is a time for resolutions, goals, and new beginnings. Our students return full of enthusiasm after the Christmas holidays as well. New exploratory classes, catching up with friends, and the return to routine starts our year off well. But something begins to happen around the third week of January. Us middle school teachers call it the Third Quarter Blues. The days are still short. And colder. The workload makes an incremental step in difficulty. We grow a bit more irritable. It feels harder to keep up the energy for learning. The 8th grade hallway begins to seem smaller to the 8th grade students as they mentally prepare for high school. The month of May seems forever away. And often, grades slip a bit.

We become active cheerleaders for the kids about keeping up effort and great attitudes. I usually have an assembly with them as well. Here is what I recommend to our kids during these months:

  • Sleep! Our biorhythms want us to rest in darkness. Middle school kids need sleep- almost as much as they needed as toddlers. Their bodies are growing, developing, and swirling with hormones. Routinely getting enough rest is the best prevention of Third Quarter Blues.
  • Commit to doing school as your job. Daily assignments, studying- you got this. Give yourself the gift of being disciplined each day. The workload will seem manageable, maybe even easy, if your commit to doing a bit each day.
  • Be kind. Human nature is to be cranky when tired and stressed. Forgive those around you that have a case of the Third Quarter Blues. Find an opportunity to be kind, without any thought of it being returned. The more you act kindly, the more you feel

Spring will be here soon. With the blooming of flowers and warmer weather, and the end in sight, the Blues lift away. And the hormones really surge- but that is another blog….