Countdown

There has been some discussion in the past week at my school about the wisdom of counting down the days until summer. Kids are doing it, at least the ones in the upper grades. Fifth graders have a special reason: They will be promoted out of that place in a scant three weeks, and they have begun to track the number of recesses they have left. Middle school has passing periods and PE. There won't be any languorous games of four square, or laps around the play structure. There won't be play structures. It makes sense that they would begin to shiver with anticipation. The rest of them will be released into their neighborhoods for two and a half months of relative freedom: pencils, books, dirty looks.
What about the grown-ups? Does it make any sense to keep tally marks in the corner of the white board? Will it make things easier to cope with as the "must do" list runs down and the "may do" list expands? The students, for their part, will come back to a different room for the next school year. The fortunate members of our staff will be coming back to the same place they left, with the main difference being fresh faces in the seats in front of us. Then there are those who won't be coming back. Every year we lose a few. Sometimes it's because a better opportunity came along: a chance to work at "a hill school" or a position at an educational software company. More often than not, however, it's the job that chews teachers up and spits them out, either by stress or the machinations of the system. For those members of our staff, counting down days means counting the days until the next big career move. It takes a little of the giddy edge off the wind down of the school year.
As years go, this has been a tough one. Budget cuts and expectations of moving our school out of program improvement has had us all on edge while the district and the teachers' union continues to do the bargaining dance that has been going on for the past two years. Would a first year teacher want to stick around a district with all of that pressure? Summer vacation isn't much of a vacation if it includes a career change. Maybe not vacation, but resolution. And so, out of respect for all those involved, I will play out the string without loud pronouncements of how many hours are left n the school year. It will come soon enough for everyone.