Most teachers I know are going full speed all day everyday.  With the requirements for more rigor for students and the necessity for increased student engagement, a teacher is “on” from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave.  This being on doesn’t lessen during the school week and usually results in what I refer to as the “Friday Crash”. This “Friday Crash” totally gets in the way of our looking forward to doing something fun for the weekend because before we can do something fun, we have to recuperate from the week before.  And then comes spring break.

It is Monday of spring break and I have spent the weekend doing what I always do on weekends – doing the weekly cleaning, catching up on things like getting the hair done, etc.  So it doesn’t feel like a break yet.  I’m sitting in my usual spot, writing this and literally talking to myself, saying things like “breathe” and “look at the sunshine and the melting snow” while I’m trying to focus on the birds at the bird feeder.  And yet my mind is going a million miles an hour and the anxiety and energy I feel in my body has not left.  It certainly doesn’t feel like break yet.  And that’s the problem with breaks.  I know that I have a week to catch up on stuff I can’t usually do during school, sleep in some and yes, probably work on some grades and school stuff,  but for me it usually takes the entire week to let go and relax before we’re back at it again.

I found myself becoming upset because I have some great friends who are able to really get away for the week.  I mean far away.  Like warm places with beaches.  Jealously is an ugly thing, I know.  I suppose I could have gone away too but it would have been alone.  So while I plan for my better half to be with a bunch of college kids at basketball games in Chicago, I will try to fill up my days with a pedicure here and a maybe a movie there, lunch with some friends and some alone time.  It’s not like I don’t want to relax and accept the staycation but there are just times when my body won’t let me.

Do other teachers feel this way or am I just weird?  It’s like being a parent I suppose.  One doesn’t throw away their parental thoughts and duties just because the child, no matter the age, isn’t in the room.  I can’t just drop school because I’m not there.  I’m still thinking of the play coming up or the grades that have to be done or the choir that needs to be prepared or the lesson plans to be written and the essential outcomes that need to be covered before the end of the year.  It never ends.  That stuff doesn’t just go away because I’m not in the building for the week.  So if I don’t work on them just a little bit during break, they seem to hit me in the face just a little bit harder when I return to school.

So in the meantime, maybe I’m not putting on the brakes, I’m just trying to let off the gas a bit, taking advantage of the time given to me to appreciate those things I don’t get to do or experience during the week.  Like actually experience the sunshine since I have no windows in my classroom.  Or celebrate the snow melting and looking forward to outside recess when we return.  Or relish in the silence I have instead of hearing children talk, yell, and scream from the moment I walk in until the moment I leave.  Or enjoy the unstructured time to do whatever whenever instead of being relegated to a rigid time schedule.  Even something as silly as using the restroom whenever I need to instead of whenever I have a minute break in that rigid schedule.

Maybe I can use this break to be grateful for the break itself and all the possibilities that it inspires.  And just breathe.