Time

I have been very fortunate this past week to receive the gift of time.

We, along with most of the eastern seaboard and the midwest, got boatloads of snow dumped on us this past week. This resulted in the cancellation of two days of school and two additional two-hour delays. I had just been thinking to myself, "My, this has been a mild winter." So much for that line of thinking.

I've had plenty of work to do in this break. It gave me a much-needed window to accomplish some grading and lesson-planning. I also got to catch up on some work around our apartment. Most wonderfully, I got to rest up and spend a wonderful window of time with my wife. With Valentine's Day looming, this little break was something neither of us expected, but it was the best Valentine's present.

I know teachers and students have a nice long break in the summer, and I am looking forward to the rest and other opportunities summer affords. At this time of the year, however, the non-stop work involved in and out of school takes its toll on all of us in schools. I can see it on my students' faces as clearly as I can feel it in my own body and spirit: we're all in need of this gift of time and rest. Teachers and students alike (and certainly administrators and everyone else who works for a school) take home so much additional work on evenings and weekends that it is hard to ever really "get away" from the grind. Plenty of other folks have this sort of non-stop workload, too. I imagine anyone who wants to always continue learning, growing and improving feels this way. Sometimes it is helpful (in spite of its dangers and inconveniences) for mother nature to step in and say, "Okay, you're not going anywhere for a while."

I'm losing a few of the days off that I had built in for the rest of the school year to make up for these snow days, but the time I got this past week was such a gift, such a relief.