Here it is:
The moment high school students drag themselves back to
their desks in January for the second semester, their countdown to spring break
commences. January and February are long
months.
But
sometimes when break finally arrives, the fantasy of a true break runs into the
harsh reality of homework.
Some
teachers feel the need to assign projects and homework over the week of break
in order to cover all the material necessary before the fast-approaching end of
the school year – or perhaps, one suspects, just as often to prove they are
deadly serious about academics and the rigors of their particular subject
area. And we have all known those (few) teachers
who simply have a pronounced sadistic streak. They seem to revel in the thought
of their pet project hovering over the heads of their students for the week. They have spent years thickening their own
skins to easily withstand the curses poured down on them by students and parents
alike on that final weekend of break when the looming due dates are tearfully –
and frantically - addressed.
I am a
teacher who believes spring break should be bona fide time off from all school
work. So even though my sophomores are
in the midst of a research paper, I refuse to hang even a minor deadline over
their break. On the day we return to
class, there will be no note cards, no rough drafts nor even a Works Cited page
due.
That is
not to say that I hope students will turn their brains off and vegetate in
front of a video game for a week. Or
even sleep twenty hours a day. (Although
judging from their stupor in class recently, some of my students would be wise
to catch up on their sleep.)
Rather,
my wish for them would be a spring break just as educational as any week of the
school year. Or more so. It was Mark Twain who once declared, “I never
let my schooling interfere with my education.”
That was his way of emphasizing the many things worth learning that far
surpass in ultimate importance the Pythagorean Theorem, the proper form of a
parenthetical notation or the cause of the War of 1812 combined. Twain reminds us that we are quite as likely
to learn key lessons outside of the classroom as inside.
Take my
family’s spring break, for example. As I
write, my wife and kids and I are in Le Mars, Iowa. I know what you are thinking. Who drives 700 miles to a small town in northwest
Iowa for spring break when the same mileage could take you to Pensacola,
Florida? But twenty years ago I took my
first job as a new college graduate right here in Le Mars as a youth pastor. Our trip to Iowa has several purposes: to
catch up with old friends, to introduce my family to them (and vice versa) and
also to seek financial and prayer support for our upcoming move and ministry to
Haiti. But for all that, it can’t help but
be educational too.
A handful of the lessons impressed on my family and me this
week:
1)
You only
need to drive two states over to discover curious cultural differences. For example, sloppy joe sandwiches here are
called “taverns” or (much less appealingly) “loose meat sandwiches” and are
often served without the sauce … just fried hamburger and onion.
2)
The town of Le Mars is the “Ice Cream Capital of
the World”. This is the birthplace of
Wells’ Blue Bunny, whose factories crank out 250,000 gallons of ice cream each
day. Annually, the company uses enough
chocolate on their ice cream bars to put a one inch thick coating over 47
football fields.
3)
Time refuses to stand still. Yesterday I walked into the local McDonalds,
which has long been a gathering place for farmers enjoying coffee and
fellowship, and saw an eighty year old man in overalls and tattered baseball
cap sitting with a cup of coffee. He
looked every bit the stereotype of the weathered farmer except for the cell
phone in his left hand and the IPad propped on the table in front of him.
4)
Old friends are the best friends. And late night
conversations are more fun than the fanciest amusement park.
Some of these lessons I already
knew, but it’s nice to experience them afresh without the pressure of school
work bearing down on these precious days.
The research papers will wait.
