Spring fever is a difficult subject to write about since I am sitting in front of a warm fire trying to overcome the chill of a very cold Easter Sunday!  Mother Nature certainly played the ultimate April’s Fool joke on our state!

                Having survived fifty plus years of teaching students during their spring fever days, I have many emotions connected to this phrase.  Mostly, I think, “God, please help us to survive these last weeks of school since students and staff are beginning to suffer from spring fever.”   My husband and I have a small RV camper which we store on the school grounds where we can remind ourselves daily that we need to schedule some time away from the school and students.  He said our retirement years will pass quickly enough; thus, we must make time for rest and relaxation.  Well, we’ve used that camper maybe four times in the past year!  But he’s right…when you see your investment staring at you every day, you are prone to start scheduling some down time!

                Perhaps the hardest part of trying to teach during the spring fever days is bringing about connectivity in the minds of our students.  The whole year is almost gone, much information and skill has been carefully packed into the learning hours.  Now, we must carefully tie a knot in the thread of learning to hold the string of knowledge together in such a meaningful way that students will be able to take a summer break and then come back to school, unknot the thread and add more information and skills to their continuous line of knowledge.  This is not an easy task!

                Thank goodness for yearly academic achievement tests.  These nationally normed tests allow us a glimpse at that thread of learning for each child.  We can make comparisons and draw conclusions about learner needs and then plan for them accordingly.  In a way, what we are doing at this time of the year is not unlike what the birds are doing outside.  We are preparing the nest for our children.  If we do a good job of analysis, preparation and planning for student growth each year, we shall produce a fine citizen for our country!   

                                                                             -   Kay