ANOTHER YEAR COMPLETED

There's an undeniable excitement to the end of a school year. It represents a period of hard work, assessments, and promotion. It is something for which the children and the teachers can be proud.

After hard work, there are awards ceremonies, banquets, field days, and class parties. Teachers rush to finish their paperwork while the students work on crafts or watch special films. Summer vacation will soon arrive and the excitement is barely containable.

It's hard to tell who is more excited, the students or the teachers. The children want to relax, spend long summers just being kids. Teachers long to have their free time back. They will have the summer to reacquaint themselves with their own children and their spouses.

Yet it's all bittersweet. Students are endearing to their teachers. Teachers are surrogate parents for 10 months. Summer means that relationship has come to an end. The students and teachers will see each other again, but the relationship will not be the same.

The 6 weeks of summer will somehow change all that.

Someday they may look back and remember, hopefully with fondness, the relationship they once shared.