The worst reason for doing anything is
“that’s the way it’s always been.” Hold
to those memories of the good, old days while you punch the buttons on your microwave and start the
dishwasher.
This morning children across the area
will bound out of bed earlier than usual, brighter than usual. (It’s the Saturday syndrome.) They will rush to their video games, ravage
the kitchen, take to their bikes. Spongebob
will blare. Except the teenagers who
will sleep until noon. It’s Spring
Break.
And for the first time in the rememberable
past, area school districts have corresponding spring breaks. If you’re still in town, stay home and off
Dowlen Road. It’s going to be worse than
the holiday shopping season.
But some people grumble, “We didn’t
have any spring break when I was in school.”
Not for me either. Not even in
college. But then, teachers wrote on
chalkboards that the kids in the back couldn’t see, our keyboarding class was
typing with Underwood manual typewriters and yes, we walked to school, two
miles, in the snow, uphill both ways! Girls
wore dresses with petticoats and their hair in pigtails. I really did attend a school with the desks
that were attached, the desk part to the seat in front and it had a hole for an
inkwell. Our buildings were “temporary”
and were old, converted Army barracks.
They had a cloak room. Never mind,
we didn’t know what a cloak was but we put our jackets and lunches in there. That was just while the new school was being
built. It lasted three years. I digress.
Maybe it was a kinder, gentler
time. But there were still playground
bullies, who would drill you with the dodge ball, just because you weren’t
popular or couldn’t hit a baseball or wore glasses. And there were tyrannical teachers, one in
particular, Mrs. Furr, who would rap your hand with the gold-colored ruler she
received for teaching excellence. And
the only school shootings were done with rubber bands. They still stung.
Now we have computers, all kinds of
electronic gadgets and gizmos, different styles of teaching, different styles
of learning. And, blissfully, spring
break. It’s a good thing. Those folks who analyze things have
determined that a person’s attention can’t be held for more than about 50
minutes or something like that. (They do
not observe this rule at in-service.)
Stands to reason that you can’t keep a kid motivated with an endless
stretch of school days. Our school year
also started in September and ended in May “back in the good old days” too.
As early in March as it may occur,
spring break signifies the downhill slide to the end. The days are getting longer and warmer. It’s time for shorts and flip-flops (even
though we wear them all year). It’s
baseball season. Everything seems a little brighter. I used to put kiddie
sunglasses on all my bears at West Brook when I left for spring break and tell
my students that the bears went on vacation too. Made them laugh, just part of the silliness
of the season. Thoreau said that every
season is best in its turn, but that Spring is like the coming of the Golden
Age, Cosmos out of Chaos. You can’t
argue with Henry.
Daniel, and probably Kayla, will be
hanging with Hubba on their spring breaks because their parents still have to
work. The work life lasts some 40 plus
years. Let’em have a week now as a
deposit on the future.
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