I still celebrate spring break even though I retired from public education thirteen years ago and have no children left at home. I’ve continuously kept my hand in the education game during all of that time that I have been away from a formal job. Somehow I have been unable to just let go and be totally retired so each week I spend two days and three evenings either being the mathematics teacher of a number of home-schooled students or tutoring those who are in public school. My familiarity with mathematics has kept me busy from the moment that I walked away from a full time job and provided me with some “fun” money to spend on my home and my grandchildren. Somehow I simply can’t break the habit of scheduling my routines according the the school year calendar. 

Spring break always comes just in the nick of time when students have lost focus and teachers are tired and wondering if they have made any progress at all. The short days of winter are behind us and the children enjoy more opportunities for using channelling their pent up energy into the natural pursuits of running, playing and exploring the world. Learning is not just about books and formalized lessons. There is so much that our youngsters must do beyond the classroom in order to fully understand themselves and the world. Spring break heralds a time of more balance for youngsters and their educators. We all need a bit of independent fun and relaxation now and then to keep us feeling fully whole. Coming back refreshed gives us the will to make the final push before the end of the school year which is only weeks away. 

The coming days will feature a frenzy of activity in which those of us who are teachers push to bring our planned curriculum to fruition in every student. We’ll have to fight a number of traditional student “illnesses” like spring fever and “senioritis. “ Another educational journey with our students is coming to a close but hopefully the knowledge that each person takes into the future will represent important building blocks in helping them to become confident and capable adults. Knowing that our students are ready for the next phase in their lives is one of the greatest challenges in school year after school year, often with little notice beyond the confines of the thousands of classrooms across the nation. 

As is often the case with humans we tend to focus more on our failures in getting each and every student successfully past the goals that we set at the beginning of the school year. We beat ourselves up when we realize that some of our charges are still struggling at the end of our artificially imposed deadlines. We forget the reality that each of us grow at our own individual paces. When we push a template for the timing of success on everyone we are bound to feel as though we have failed. Instead we might consider breaking down the education of an individual into a series of goals that we measure according to each person’s needs rather than a generic deadline. 

Spring break and the changing of the seasons always reminds me of the folly that we impress on our children when we expect them to progress in lockstep. Little in life works that way. Even the trees of the same variety in my yard burst into buds at differing times. I have learned to be patient and confident that the ones that are the last to demonstrate their awakening are often the ones that will be the most beautiful. 

If I am willing to allow the natural rhythm of my plants to demonstrate their glory then I wonder why we feel so compelled to constantly rank our youngsters according to the speed with which they learn and perfect skills. We already know that humans do not develop along a preset schedule and yet we ask our children and their educators to push hard to insure that everyone reaches the finish line of a school year by a predetermined date. Our insistence on such rigidity is holding back those who grasp the concepts more rapidly and injuring the confidence of those who require more time. 

We make our teachers and many of our students feel inadequate because we insist on a one size fits all way of educating the masses. We treat individuals as though they are all the same which works nicely when discussing rights but misses the mark when applied to the process of learning. We do our children a disservice by forcing lots of square pegs into round holes. Sometimes we actually damage the psyches of those who learn in different ways and at different times. 

Perhaps spring time should not beckon an ending of a particular school year but simply a time to realign our efforts to match the progress of each individual child without stamping him or her with the labels of winner or loser. Instead we should list what we know each student has mastered, celebrating individual efforts wherever they fall on the continuum of what they need to learn. Think of how wonderful it would be if we were to focus on the process rather than racing to an endpoint. We might begin to create lifelong learners rather than a nation of people who see schooling as something punitive. 

One of my grandsons is a runner. I have watched many of his races and inevitably there are gifted athletes who are far ahead of the pack. Then a tight mob of good but average runners come along and finally there will be a few who cross the finish line noticeably later than their peers. In every case the crowd cheers everyone on, clapping for their willingness to keep going. We congratulate them for their efforts and for the fact that they are trying while we are only sitting in the stands.

Maybe one day spring break in schools will be followed by celebrations of what each person has learned rather than a competition in which some students and teachers earn accolades and others only feel like losers simply because they have accomplished or learned a bit less than their peers. Instead we should be congratulating them for what they have successfully completed by showing them the progress they have made. If we build on each personal outcome in appropriate ways everyone will keep running in the springtime sprint knowing that it is actually a marathon in which everyone has a chance to get to the finish line.