Break

 This Spring has sprung. After weeks of unseasonably warm weather, we were treated to a day of rain and then something a little more manageable: fifties and sixties during the day. This allowed us to make it through the week before our vernal vacation. 

There is little doubt that the tensions felt among the teachers and staff regarding the pending closure of our school has had an impact on our little charges. The wild-eyed ramblings of your standard elementary schooler are easy enough to anticipate, but this year that effect seems to have doubled down. The challenge of keeping a straight line quiet in the hallways has all but been abandoned by teachers who are managing their own overwhelming level of stress. 

The party line is that we are committed to delivering the same quality education we always have. We anticipate the break from the day to day, but we have not surrendered to the looming specter of moving on from this place. When we return, we know that our upper grade kids are going to be lashed once again to the task of standardized testing. We expect that our school will show gains.

This is what we say. 

What we worry about is the year and a half we spent away, and the difficulty we have all faced during this year of returning to in-person instruction. Suddenly we are reminding kids once again that this will go on their permanent record. Immediately we walk this back by reminding them that we only want them to do their best. My own words from when I taught fourth grade come back to me: "Tests are not a time of learning. They are a time of showing off what you have learned." 

Then I think of the apocryphal tale of Britney, the third grade girl whose response to being set down in front of her test booklet and number two pencil was to sit quietly for a few minutes, then she stood up, snapped her pencil in two and screamed. Then she ran out of the room. This is the kind of reaction we are seeing in the weeks leading up to a week's vacation. 

What lies on the other side? We will wait and see. There are no more test booklets, and no more number two pencils. Just Chromebooks. My mind swirls with the images of what Britney might have done with one of those.