~thankfully so will they~

It's the day before Valentine's Day and because there is no school tomorrow for us in Ponca City, the kids in our district will be celebrating with a party today.  Their excitement was spilling over yesterday as they began to put their greetings into each other's decorated bags that are pretty much precariously attached to the sides of their desks.  I quickly began adding yet one more layer of scotch tape to hold them in place as I hoped they would not break apart with the weight of all the "goodies" that were going inside of them.  Today about 2:30 all those cards and treats will be enjoyed by the 19 kids that are mine this year.

Valentine's Day parties~you gotta love 'em.

40 years of parties at school have come and gone now.  In some districts that I have been in, there are more celebrations than others.  I remember back in the very early days of the 1980's (and that seems like a very long time ago) that we had one for Halloween, a feast for Thanksgiving, Christmas of course, Valentine's Day, and an Easter egg hunt in the spring. Come to think of it, in my Kansas classrooms there was always a Kansas Day celebration on January 29th.  There were birthday parties for any of the kids who wanted to celebrate their special day.  The sounds of laughter and children talking in a louder than normal voice could be heard up and down the hallways of whatever school I was teaching in at the time.  As a teacher, party days could be rather difficult to get through and sometimes yet are not at the top of my "favorite things to do at school" list.  

Yet the proverbial "bottom line" is this.
Children need to be allowed to be children.
And having a party at school is just part of being a kid.

Our school year is closing in on 75% complete now.  The end of the 3rd quarter is out there on the very near horizon.  The kids don't realize just how important every single remaining school day is.  I'm sure that sometimes they feel like the year will drag on forever and ever.  I'll bet a little girl named "Peggy Ann" felt the very same way at their age, now more than 50 years ago.   We'll be working hard this morning and well into the afternoon hours as we finish up what remains for us to do before the beginning of a four day weekend for my students.

And at afternoon's close after all of the cards have been ripped open, refreshments have been enjoyed, and fun has been had, those 19 kids will all go home.  The room will undoubtedly need to be put back together before I too head home for the day.  The peace and quiet of an empty room will return and on Tuesday of next week~

Thankfully so will they.

~my Valentine~



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As We All Hang on to Hope/Along the Road to Home

Image
The birds were singing in our neighborhood this early February morning.  The resident Northern Cardinal called out from the tops of the trees in our side yard to any and all who would hear it.  The Cedar Waxwing, House Finch, and European Starling joined in the chorus as well.  It was so nice to hear their voices as I stood on the front porch breathing in the fresh air.  It gave me hope that someday soon all the many birds will return as the weather and the calendar move closer to spring. We hang on to that hope. For the past month, during these horribly cold days of January and winter, I have been trying to get some spider plants to start in the south kitchen window.  Slowly I watched their roots develop, getting bigger and stronger every morning.  I knew it would be time to soon take them from the water and transplant the tender young plants into soil.  I wasn't really expecting to do it this morning, but the weather brought us more tolerable tempera...
Read more

From the plains of Oklahoma, along the road to home

Image
It's early, in fact it's 4:30 a.m. in the morning early, here along the plains of Oklahoma.  The house is remarkably quiet save for the once in a while snoring sound of Gus, our 7-year-old miniature Aussie dog.  I love the quiet and every chance I can, I sit in it and relish the gift of peace that it offers to me.  Soon enough the sun will arise, cars will wake up on the streets of our town, and children will venture up and down Magnolia Avenue on their bicycles as they yell back and forth to one another. The gift only lasts so long so I enjoy it when and while I can. Many years ago, I began blogging right before I left for the Bike Across Kansas in the summer of 2011.  Writing turned out to be something I really loved to do and so I continued during the summer.  In August of 2011, a really poor decision made while I was riding a bike ended up sending me to the hospital with a badly broken left arm and wrist.  The recovery was a long one, punctuated by nume...
Read more

~and I came here to stay~

Image
I learned something about myself as a teacher and a person during the first 3 days of school last week, and the something is this. "I have a plenty to learn." I have wanted to be a teacher for Ponca City Public Schools   for well over a year now.   I wanted to come here because I knew it would be a great opportunity to grow and change as a teacher.  With a quite limited number of years left as a public school educator, I didn't want to waste the chance to be able to help kids in any way that I could.  This particular district offers a tremendous amount of support to its staff who in turn are able to pass that support on to the children they teach each day.  I like that about being here, and it is a win-win  for all concerned. I definitely learned a lot during the first three days of school, and some of it was the hard way.  It's a humbling thing to be a veteran teacher of 40 years now and find yourself making mistakes that others who have bee...
Read more