A Note about the End of the School Year

Remember when you were a kid and the distance between the present moment and something you were looking forward to felt like forever? I can remember feeling like Christmas would never get here. The distance between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas felt like years! There is science to support the reasons time feels so different as kids versus as adults. Essentially, time flies without novelty. The older we get, the more life experiences we have, and the more life seems to come at us fast. Because we’ve seen a lot and less feels new. But when our brain knows we are experiencing something unique or for the first time, time slows down or at least feels slower, and it feels that way because our brain is actively learning and captivated during the new.

I was enjoying coffee with a colleague this morning, and we were talking about international travel, laughing about how some of our indelible memories from trips stemmed from hiccups. As an example, when my husband and I landed in Paris on the last day of the Tour de France, we struggled to find any taxis and certainly couldn’t find any that would take us within two blocks of the Arc de Triomphe which is where our hotel happened to be. Extremely poor planning on our part and yet, an adventure that we lived to tell. But no time felt more slow than the long walk through the streets of Paris, dragging heavy suitcases by foot for miles to our final destination.

Yes, sometimes time also slows down because we are so over it. Whatever it may be. The meeting. The weight of the same problems.

Anyway, I see a lot of us filling time with things that aren’t allowing us to slow time down when we want to savor a bit more. I see many of us reaching for our phones in restaurants or while enjoying a walk outside. And I guess I’m worried that we are missing it. We are missing the absolute joy and miracle of daily existence. And maybe if we made a little space to marvel at the true magic of being alive today, maybe we would take a little better care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.

So, while many are counting down the days until the school year ends and summer begins and trust me, I get it. Let’s not forget to slow down time in a good way for students. Some students won’t be excited to be away from school, to be away from the love of the staff, or to be away from the routines that make them feel safe. So, how might we make these last precious days feel special and savored in our classrooms? Yes, there will be fun field days and perhaps pep rallies, but how might we make our classrooms feel a smidge different in these final weeks? Perhaps a trip outside for instruction, a new learning game, a change in seating arrangements. No move is too small as I outline in Legacy of Learning.

Every little move we make will allow us to savor the precious time we have with each other this school year.

And I don’t want us to wish that away. It matters because we matter. We matter to each other. And this work matters to the future of our communities and this world.