A Little Break

My job this week has been somewhat like juggling live grenades. The students are about ready to blast off. We brought it on ourselves. On Friday, a week ago, there was a staff development day. The students were off, the teachers mostly worked. Then it was a three-day weekend to celebrate Memorial Day. So the children had four long days to realize that summer is here and they want to be FREE!!!
I don't blame them. I really, really didn't want to return to school on Tuesday. What a drag...However, we had a lot of things to do and we jumped back into the harnesses and shouted, "Giddy-up!"

The key word there being "giddy"....Everyone is just so over the school year. Good news for me---I'm going to Oregon tomorrow morning to visit my daughter and watch her graduate with her master's degree in nursing practice. The graduation is actually on Monday, so we return to Nevada late Monday night. I don't have to deal with the wild people on Monday! My poor substitute....

When I get back, we'll be very busy. On Tuesday, it is clean out your desk day, put together our Memory Books day, awards assembly day, Memory Book/Yearbook signing party. Then, on Wednesday it is Pancake Breakfast day. It's my end of year tradition started in my poverty school when I realized that some of my students might not get any lunch when they went home at noon. Plus, it really burns up that final three hours, especially now that I have 96 fourth graders to shovel pancakes into. It's fun and I have help and, seriously, the day just zooms past till---suddenly---it's 12:15 and everyone can go home.

Except the teachers. But, finally, we can put everything away and pack up and stack up and take a deep breath. I keep reading these proposals to make all schools into year-round or some other version that eliminates the ten week summer break. And I say "Please...you don't know how intense it is to be a teacher. We really need that break, so that we can recover and generate enthusiasm for the next fall." Seriously. I was in a year-round school for two years. I was exhausted. There was never an "end"---it just went on  and on. Three weeks is simply not enough time to regenerate and recover.

I stayed tonight until 8:30 to finish copying the Memory Book pages so lovingly written and illustrated by my students. The copy machines were ridiculous and obstreperous, but I finally managed to outwit them. Three class sets from 33 students in each room. They're so awesome, too. Each student wrote about an event or a class from fourth grade, then drew a little picture. I copy them back to back, and we assemble the books in class. Then, everyone gets a memento from our year. You'd be impressed how grateful they are, too, because many of them can't afford a yearbook. So the "free" Memory Book (card stock bought by me, hours of copying done by me on my time) is a wonderful gift.

So, off to Portland I go tomorrow. I'll eat the succulent food we always find up there. I'll cheer on my amazing daughter for her awesome accomplishment. I'll relax and I won't even think about my class for three whole days. Whew...I just hope none of the grenades go off for the substitute. She is my hero this weekend.