Have you ever taken a ride on Kingda Ka roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure? You get in a seat with the high-velocity harness, waiting for the click to secure you. Unlike other coasters where the suspense builds as you climb, this one rolls the passengers up a few feet and then has you wait a minute or so before lift-off. There’s no clear signal of when you’ll lift off, but then POP you can feel yourself lifted upwards like a slingshot hundreds of feet into the air, then the usual lull just before the apex, then down the twisting ramp. By the time you and your fellow passengers come back downward, it feels less like a rocket launch and more like a dizzying glide.
The ride from launch to base takes almost exactly a minute (yes, I checked), but it feels like forever until it’s not. If that’s not the most appropriate metaphor for the academic school year, I don’t know what is.
Even writing this has me tired for folks on the coaster. Looking forward, we see just up ahead a deluge of midterm exams, benchmark assessments, standardized tests, meetings with parents and fellow educators, and so many events to plan. At the beginning of school, I always had good expectations for how I wanted the year to go. I’d have a a handful of goals I’d set for myself and another handful for my students. As I gained more years of experience, I also knew to control those expectations so I could hold steady for the year. By year six, Winter Break felt less like a rushed escape and more like a well-timed end of a paragraph.
That takes time and experience with doing the work, and helps when you’re getting back into the swing of things again. With less than a week left until you get back from break, give yourself the space to start a new paragraph.
When speaking to teachers, principals, and other educators, it’s evident that people are tired. But they’re also tired of being tired. On paper, the job is still the same. The social and interpersonal parameters of the job have changed significantly. Even so, a significant number of people want to do something wholly new. Here’s a good list of things I’d do in preparation for the new year (applicable in multiple situations):
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