Back to school

Wait...didn't we read about this already? Well, no, not exactly. Though planning ahead is a preference, I'm not that prepared - OR clairvoyant. Nope. This 'Back to School' belongs to April.

After what seemed like the longest month on record, and occurring nowhere NEAR Easter, Spring Break finally arrived. So, you may be thinking 'Big deal, most of us don't get a week off for Easter....or two weeks at Christmas AND the whole summer' and therefore, you offer no sympathy. Here's the thing. Unless you are a teacher or have at least ten children of your own, you don't get it. And that's fine....we've heard most of the arguments. The very nature of the arguments delineates the personality types that are drawn to or led away from the education field. We won't get into pay equivalency, jury duty, vacation time of your choosing, verbal abuse and harassment, workload (obviously NOT why we became teachers). Alas, the soapbox can be put away for another time (Open House, IEPs, Back-to-School-Night, state testing, parent conferences, the THOUSANDS of notices we have to try to get back from parents) Yes, put away. Does the break seem to be necessary yet? No bones.... it was. Just remember how glad you are when it's time for your break - when your kids go back!

Our plan was simple - to do and clean all those things we hadn't been able to get to since Winter Break. That's all that needs to be said about that. Before we knew it , it was Sunday night again and we were grudgingly preparing to go back.

This past week we all went back to our respective places of learning. In addition, we decided that we didn't have enough things to keep us from the aforementioned chores. So, Mom and Hallie have solved the problem. We'll just simply add more school.

Hallie has chosen to enroll in two new courses this year. For the next eight weeks, she will be enriching her life experience and feeding her very creative soul - first with dancing (Creative Dance and Movement) then, with drawing and painting. She is beyond excited and has already embraced the curriculum. She offered to show the dance teacher her 'moves' on the first day of dance class and, on art day, drew a picture "to show her how happy I am that we have art in our world and that I'm glad to have her as a teacher". It's no surprise that she came out of both as happy as she went in. So with the upcoming infusion of swimming into her schedule, she will definitely be a busy (social butterfly of a) little girl. Excuse me...BIG girl.

Now, given all the facts (and the strange idea that she can add hours to her day as needed), Mom concluded that there was no better way to pass the time during these various lessons than to focus on homework - her own! Not one to think that you can ever learn enough, she decided another Master's degree sounded like a good thing. No, it won't mean more money and-soap box again- if it seems logical that a business requiring "Highly Qualified" people would pay for the advanced specialization, the business of school is not that logical. So, over the course of about 15 years, we'll recoup the cost. In the mean time, Mom can feel like she's hanging on to the brain cells she's got and may even be creating a few new pathways with the added knowledge. The irony lies in the fact that the degree is in technology. So.... she can get better at using stuff that lets her avoid using her brain.? Hmmmm. Maybe it's time to rethink. We'll run the data and get back to you.

I guess we just can't stay away from school!