Spring Broke

I am blessed to have many friends in education, and of those, many work places other than Texas. Most school districts here are just ending their spring breaks, timed to coincide with collegiate breaks. Many of you have yet to have your "break," or are beginning as we end. Especially for those of you who live in northern climes where a break now would be an additional winter break with spring actually more than a month away. Regardless, spring break has become institutionalized; a holiday as sacred as Christmas. Any school district that would propose an academic calendar sans spring break would likely inspire their own Arab Spring complete with revolutionaries burning effigies in the street. Those revolting against the spring breakless calendar would no doubt receive surreptitious funding from all the spring break Meccas like Florida, Cancun, and Padre Island. "Why is that?” she asks rhetorically.

Visit a school the week before the break and observe the behavior of staff and kids. During the week preceding the break all the lounge talk is about the break, the "need" for a break. It does not matter where the break falls during the 8 weeks of March or April. All that matters is that there is a break. Tension rises in anticipation of the break, peeks about Wednesday before the break, and then Thursday and Friday are downhill slides into the break.

I would suggest we "need" the break for two main reasons. First, because it is there. If there were not a break no one would need it. As proof, I would suggest that school folks in Texas really needed a break during the week of March 5 to 9 in anticipation of the break that fell March 12 to 16. Other systems did not feel the need as strongly that week as their break occurs later. When we return on Monday, other districts will be in the week before their break and will really feel the need for the break, while we, having broken, are all returned from our break re-focused until year's end. If a break were really needed, wouldn't we all feel it across this nation at about the same time? But no, we only really feel it during spring break eve.

Second, in an era of high stakes standardized tests, the break is much more likely to be really needed. There is an intensity in classrooms as futures ride on outcomes of bubble sheets that cannot be maintained from Christmas to May. Even with the break, some crack under the stress. There are laws and regulations regarding the amount of time truckers can drive, flight controllers can control, and pilots can fly. No such laws exist in education, but as the pressure mounts, there likely should be.

We remain the subjects of the medieval agrarian calendar. If school consumes 9.5 of the 12 months it makes much more sense to have our "summer" during spring. In summer it is too bloomin' hot to be outdoors and would seem much wiser to be indoors with AC provided by tax dollars. Besides, hurricanes happen in summer and kids would be safer in school buildings than apartment complexes or mobile homes. Winter would be the best time for high stakes testing as it gets dark early and the weather is nasty and we might as well be in school hitting the books with fervor. The season of giving could be expanded to include tests.

But spring is wonderful! Life blooms again. It stays light later. We plant. All the saps rise. Yes, now is the time to take a break.

Our break is now over. Those still employed return to work tomorrow. Kids will drag in. (Staff too, but we will not talk about that.) We go through the process of starting up for the home stretch; the high stakes, high intensity home stretch with no real relief in sight until June. Turn up the heat on the pressure cooker that has become public schools because we have just a few weeks to left to cook.

And I wonder if the break was worth it. Five instructional days gone. The two or three days before hand likely wasted in anticipation, and the two or three days first back likely out of sync means that a one week vacation in the middle of the second semester really costs us up to 10 lost teachable days.

Yep, feels more like spring broke to me.

Really, Dear Parents

I am inspired to write on behalf of teachers everywhere, and in particular for those teachers I know and love who share anecdotal stories regarding interactions with parents and administrators that are beyond belief. If you are a parent and recently have met with a teacher regarding your child’s performance or behavior, or if you are a young administrator and have just heard a parent complaint about one of the teachers in your building, this is for you:


Dear Parents,

Teaching is an incredibly difficult job, especially so if you care about kids and care that they learn. Sadly, kids greatly outnumber us and I am not able to give each child the attention I might like, and equally sad is the fact that your child is not able to do exactly as he or she may want to do because that would distract from the learning of others, or worse, distract me as I attempt to teach others. With that said, here is the truth:

I am not picking on your child, I am not singling your child out for ridicule, and I am not conspiring to set your child up. Do you believe that? Really? There are way too many kids for me to devote the kind of effort that it would take to sabotage one child. There is absolutely nothing for me to gain if your child is structured for failure. There is everything for me to gain and for your child to gain if your child does his or her work and behaves while they are in class. Every effort on my part is to help them and others succeed.

Your child will lie to you. Really. Rather than confess their sins and admit that they did not do their work or that they acted the fool in class, they will prefer to paint me as the bad guy rather than disappoint you. I am not the bad guy. I am doing my very best to help your child succeed and I could use your help. If they tell you something other than that, it is not the truth.

Learning takes dedicated and focused work. I am glad that your child has experienced success prior to my class. To experience success in my class, however, they must do the work and they must behave. The track record of your child means little to me as I attempt to teach them what they must learn this year. Again, I do not have the time to conspire for your child to fail and the path to success is simple, made more so by your support.

Perhaps you think it would be wonderful if every failure your child experienced was someone else’s fault. Do you believe that? Really? Perhaps that is why you call principals to complain that your child is failing or is in trouble and you think it is my fault. It is not my fault. It is the fault of your child. If the principal agrees with you that it is my fault, that is more a reflection on the preparation and quality of the principal than of me. Call me.

But please, before you pick up the phone or log on to your email account, take a breath. Ask yourself if you really, really believe that a professional educator would go to great lengths to set your child up to fail. That for some truly bizarre reasons an adult, professional, degreed certified educator would on some whim pick some student out of the blue on some given day to harass, ridicule, pick on, or set up to fail. That is an anathema to teachers. Our job is to promote learning and success. We take no joy from failure. Help us.

Really.