Sunday, March 21, 2021

Break Means Break

 I'm just coming off Spring Break, and I very happily disconnected from school for a while to refresh and re-charge my batteries for the final quarter. I wrote about it for this week's column in The Villager:

Break Means Break

For the past few days my daughter has been relaxing, enjoying herself, and not thinking about school. Hopefully many kids in the area on spring break have been able to do the same. From holidays and spring break to winter vacation and summertime, kids and teachers need breaks to comfortably step back and decompress from the pressures of school.

As a teacher I’ve always believed break means break, and it’s been my practice to complete units and assessments before we leave, sending kids off with no homework during the break. I’ve never understood teachers who assign a bucket load of work over long breaks that is turned in on the first day back. Who’d want something like that? The last thing I’m looking for after Thanksgiving weekend or Spring Break is for a hundred research papers to start grading. Ick. When we return to school, I want everyone rested and ready to start fresh.

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1 comment:

Mike Thiac said...

As I've told many co-workers, I know I need a few days off when I'm driving around in my pickup, I see someone doing something dangerous or stupid (e.g. running a red light, almost hitting another car, etc), and I reach over to run his license plate and get ready to pull him over.

I then know, "Mike, go chill out for a few days..." :<)