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.

SCHOOL'S STARTING

School seems to start earlier and earlier each year. Back when I was young, the summer break was started at Memorial Day and ended right after Labor Day. Back in those days schools weren't air conditioned, so right around the middle of April the teachers dusted off the old box fans and taught over the sound of those wind machines. The teachers used them the first couple of weeks after school started in September, too.

Oh yeah, I'm that ancient.

In Tennessee, school has to last 180 days. There's a Fall Break, a Christmas Break, and a Spring Break. A few other holidays are scheduled throughout the year. Those weren't available when I was a child.  We got 2 days off for Thanksgiving, 2 weeks for Christmas, and Good Friday off.  I always thought that children should get the whole day off for Halloween.  So did the teachers.  My mother always disagreed.

Right now I am working as a substitute teacher.  There are a lot of teacher cutbacks in my community.  Still, like being a substitute teacher.  It gives me time to work on my writing.  It keeps my mind actively engaged in my community and that will give me more creative ideas.

Those kids can really make me laugh sometimes, too.