Summer School

It is the last week of school. Children all over America are going On field trips, having assemblies, Parties, and water fights with their teachers. Teachers who have not smiled all year long Are pulling out all the stops. They are scrambling Into their Laura Ingalls Wilder long dresses and Bonnets, to wow the children. They are becoming human, something they Dared not do all year long. The children are Learning things they did not know - for example, Mrs. Fanning is married, Mrs, Seabroke has a Daughter and six sons. The teachers’ walls are coming down, and in a big Way. They are laughing, grinning, high-fiving each Other. We made it another year, they are saying to Each other. We made it! We survived! And they Did; another year, with another class. They are ready For their summer break. And the saddest part of summer break is this. The Teachers who don’t allow themselves the summer Break, the ones who teach summer school all summer Are usually the ones who needed a summer break Most of all. But they have shopped too much Which increases anxiety, which not only has created more anxiety But has forced them to work all summer during summer School with children who also needed the summer break The most of all. Do you know who signs up first for summer school now? It is the A students; they love school. The bottoms, the ones who are Mandated to go are the least likely to sign up until they Learn that not going means being in grade 3 again next Year. That usually does the trick. What I have never figured out is: how do we think Six weeks of summer school is going to be able to Teach what nine months of school did not? That’s what I really want to know.