We celebrated with a Sonic stop!
All my non-teacher friends might be thinking about how silly it is that a grown person gets to have a spring break. I have heard a few times this year alone people saying, "It would be nice to be a teacher..." referring specifically to the breaks. Yes, the breaks are really nice. But let me tell you... teaching can be really hard sometimes. Teachers do not sign up for the job because they want to have spring break and summer vacation and a whole week off at Thanksgiving. But it is a necessity for teachers to have these breaks because of the stress of the job. Don't get me wrong - it's a lot of fun, too! It's just that we don't have regular jobs where we work with "grown up" people. We work with children... and lots of them. In my case (kindergarten) they cannot tie their shoes. They go to the restroom a lot. They get boo-boos often. They need ice packs and band aids. They cannot solve their own problems when working with other people. They cannot even read, at least at first. We work with them when they don't feel their best. We work with them when they are tired because the storm woke them up in the middle of the night. We work with them when their mommy or daddy is sick and couldn't keep a regular routine at home. We work with the kids who have specialized academic needs or challenging behaviors or dietary restrictions or physical limitations. Sometimes we have all of these things to work around within one small group of children.
We work with them all day and every day and when they need a break, we do too.
So, on top of it just being spring and the typical brother/sister-type relationships that happen in the classroom beginning to peak (we do spend all day, every day together after all), spring break marks the end of a grading period. That means, on top of my regular instructional material to cover, I have to assess all my students in all the content areas (and behavior) for not just this grading period but all the ones prior to this one. In kindergarten, this looks like a lot of one on one interaction between the students and teacher. If you know anything about five year olds and their level of independence, that means it takes me a long time. On top of that, we have Open House the week before spring break. So now I am teaching what I need to teach, pulling students back for assessments, and making sure my classroom is clean and the halls and room are filled with wonderful, happy, colorful student work for parents to come and check out. Oh, and I have to keep up with the normal routine of meetings and conferences and communication with parents and staff. This would probably be the equivalent of doing your normal day's work with e-mails and meetings while having a major presentation to make, while giving annual reviews to all of the members of your team, while trying to keep the entire office cleaned up and that includes the fridge in the break room. And I won't elaborate as to how many teacher friends I have that spent at least some of their spring break doing something for their classrooms either... because like I said earlier - we don't get into teaching for the breaks!
When Kroger sells cute and affordable Adirondack chairs for kids, you grab a couple!
So, let spring break officially begin! I am looking forward so much to not worrying about getting the kids out the door by 7:00 am and being able to run errands and getting things done around the house that I don't have the energy for on a normal weekday. I hope all my friends that have earned their spring break enjoy their time off... you deserve it!
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