Keep Yourselves Safe

For Wednesday, December 21, 2011

As Christmas vacation approaches it has been a challenge to continue teaching. Students need this break as do we educators, but we all manage to get ourselves to school each day and to do our best to be alert and attentive in the lessons prior to the holidays. There are projects and papers due, exams to give or take, and last minute tasks to check. It has been a flurry of emails to parents and teens, and students staying after school to get one more assignment done before academic grade checks threaten to keep them on the bench at the next game.

The final week before vacation is hectic for teens and adults. So I consider myself lucky when as students are leaving my classroom for vacation that last day, I am thrown a “Thank you” or a “Merry Christmas” or a “Have a Nice Vacation”. I try to offer these sentiments to them as they file out, with an added, “Be safe and come back in one piece!” They sometimes look at me funny at this remark but unfortunately there have been more than a couple of tragic happenings over a school vacation. I know I will sound morbid but I say a prayer that they will all come back and sit in their desks once again come January. A teacher who is a mother always worries, whether or not the children are biologically her own.

As we all pack our backpacks and grab our coats to leave for vacation, I remind them to take care of themselves, to drive carefully on these wintry roads, and to get their rest. Oh and after a few days of rest, to get their homework done too. They smirk at me, nod, and promise they will.