Mid-Winter Blues

From T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land:

"April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain."

    With all due respect to Mr. Eliot, I beg to differ.  Every public school teacher in the United States will tell you that April isn't the bully that teases us into longing for springtime.  February is.  More specifically, mid-February.  Like now.   

I was a teacher in public schools, in Illinois and Indiana, for 40 years or so.  Without a doubt, February was the worst month of all for both content and discipline.  It was as predictable as sunrise, and we on the other side of the desks dreaded it.  The common mantra was "If we can just get through February..."  

Why is that?  Why is February so much worse than other months in the school year?  Let me count the ways...

First and foremost, cabin fever has set in.  

At the elementary level, the students have been stuck inside for awhile. Conditions on the playground, temperatures, and wind chill factors determine whether the kids are allowed to have recess outside or not.  In spite of injury possibilities on the playground, outside recess allows the children to burn off pent-up energy.  They can run and shout and play--something they cannot do at inside recess.  Inside, they are stuck in their classrooms with the same kids they may have been fussing with all day and forced to play board games that may or may not have all of the pieces intact.  And the teachers have to split their time between classrooms to "keep the lid on" in order to give their colleagues a break on a rotating basis.

At the secondary level, students--especially those who drive themselves to school--are tired of the snow and the slush and the cold.  It's hard to show off your new tattoo or wear your flip-flops to display your expensively-pedicured toes if you have to stay covered up.  Prom is coming (usually in April), so the young ladies are already looking at catalogs for gowns in order to miss the rush.  Spring break also looms, so vacation plans to Panama City Beach need to be made before everyone else reserves the available accommodations in Florida.  Kids are distracted.  Education is usually the last thing on their minds.  (I wish I were kidding about this.  I'm not.)

Secondly, educational efforts evaporate.

This is especially true if you teach seniors, which I did for quite awhile.  Kids who plan to go on to college or trade school are stressed by 1) needing to decide what they want to study, where they will go to school, and what they think they need to do for the rest of their lives; 2) trying to procure funding for their higher education.  (Applying for federal aide and scholarships is stress-inducing);  and 3) figuring out, maybe for the first time, that accumulated GPA and class standing will affect their ability to get into a school of their choice.  Suddenly, skating through the previous three-and-a-half years hangs heavily over their heads.  Oops!

The seniors are simply killing time to freedom by February.  We in education call this Senioritis, and the struggle is real.  In a word, they're done.  They are what the military refers to as "short timers".  They have already met with the Josten's representatives for their graduation announcements and been measured for their caps and gowns.  Like work horses that sense proximity to the barn, they sprint to get there whether the driver/rider wants to go in that direction or not.  The conscientious students will continue their efforts, even knowing that class rank was established in January.  Those who just can't wait to get on with their lives no longer care, as long as they don't embarrass their families by failing the year.  Everyone else is somewhere in between.  Each day is a new exercise in frustration--for them and their teachers.  (Went through this with my own child at that age.  We got through Senioritis only by, as they say, the skin of our teeth!)

Teachers of seniors have a special charge, (or at least did just before I retired).  The administration expected us to work the kids right up to the last minute in order to limit senior pranks and other shenanigans, and yet, we were expected to notify admin. a month ahead of time if a senior were at risk of not graduating.  Then, too, there was a proficiency test, administered to sophomores, that had to be passed for graduation to happen.  If not passed, the test--a different test each year--was given the next year, and so on until passed...or not.  If not passed by senior year, teachers were given a list of students to tutor before the test but not given any extra time to do it.  (That's a whole other blog post.  Don't get me started!)  The prep for the extra tutoring for the test to be administered in March was in...guess?  Yup.  February. 

My grandchildren go to a Sudbury Model school in Washington.  Private.  Not public.  Because of the Snowmageddon conditions in their area this February, most of the schools out there have been closed for the better part of two weeks, which is unheard of for them.  The public schools are still closed today.  Next week is mid-winter break for them.  This morning, my daughter was asking me, from a teacher's perspective, what kind of education would be going on if the schools opened tomorrow for the ONE DAY that they would have before the break.  My response?  Unless they are miracle workers, the name of the game for one day will be Keep The Lid On.  No education will transpire.  And that is what prompted this whole post from me.  

In Illinois, a couple of "snow days" are built into the calendar surrounding breaks.  If they aren't used, the breaks get longer; if they are, the breaks get shorter.  In Indiana--at least in Central Indiana--snow days aren't built into the calendar.  Days used are tacked onto the end of the year.  In Washington, where my grandbabies are, debilitating snow is rare enough that extra days aren't built into the school calendar; however, they have something called Midwinter Break.  This is apart from Christmas Break and Spring Break...and it happens in February.  Why?  For all of the reasons I have mentioned in this whole blog post, plus the fact that, since they usually have gloom and rain all winter, the Powers That Be understand the need for a February break.  Of course, the school year goes late into June out there, but at least they aren't all ready to kill each other before it happens.

Oh, February!  Thou art so cruel!  Typically, Valentine's Day is the dividing line between winter and spring-ish in Indiana.  Today is Valentine's Day.  It's 53 degrees where I am.  I'm ready for robins and crocuses and the knowledge that my Washington family is done with the worst of their weather problems.  I'm ready for sunshine, even if cold.  I'm ready.  But winter isn't over yet... 

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends.  We are almost through February.  May the mid-winter "blues" turn into spring "greens" for us all soon!