Broken

 The village was strained last week. 

Returning from Spring Break with our principal on sick leave made us all step up our game. The expected brain drain that occurs in teachers and students alike had to be ignored so that we could push on into the last two months of school. 

The first day back was calm enough to give us all hope. A number of key student absences gave us confidence in what lay ahead. 

By Tuesday afternoon, we had discovered that we were facing a larger challenge than we might have expected. Behavior that had been quietly suppressed on that first day came pouring out in what we can only assume was a reminder to us all that we are teaching expectations. Therefore we cannot expect those expectations to be embedded. 

Not yet. 

For those of us who believed that we might just slide into our time-tested routines and start preparing our little darlings for that big push called standardized testing, fate had something different in store: Business as usual. 

Fourth graders who had a week to forget their primordial feuds reignited their petty conflicts primarily for the purposes of missing class time. Kindergartners who had mastered the art of waiting in line returned to their habit of making a swirling mass of arms and legs, unable to move without screeching or touching one another. A wave of amnesia struck most of the school when it came to remembering one another's names as well as those of staff members who were tirelessly attempting to maintain some order in the chaos. 

By Friday, everyone had used up most of their best selves. Many had stuck around for the Thursday night STEM gathering, with parents, teachers and students celebrating those science-y things that look like fun but carry hidden learning. Catapults. Paper airplanes. Robots. The Eat, Learn, Play Bus rolled onto our campus at lunch on Friday, and it was all we could do to get our young charges lined up to receive their bag of books and vegetables. 

But we made it. 

Hopefully the weekend will be kinder to us all heading into next week. 

It's elementary.