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Disrupt the Everyday

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.

On a morning when the entire community came together to celebrate fifth grade and their Shakespeare mash-up, One Midsummer Night, the closing monologue of Robin Goodfellow Puck has given me pause as we move towards break.  

Too often in schools—especially by the time February rolls around—the routine of the day-to-day, week-to-week experience of our children has a distinct rhythm to it: wake-up, get ready for school, breakfast, out the door, off to school, return from school, do you have any homework? great, let’s get to it, off to practice, how was practice?, dinner’s ready, everyone please clear your dishes, and on and on. It is a comfortable rhythm, yet we may forget to find the individual magic of the moment, the eighth-note rest in the day that invites us to take stock of just how special these days and weeks are in the lives of our children, and in our own lives.

It is my hope, both as a parent and as a school head, that we wrest ourselves from the slumber of the everyday. These moments of childhood are decidedly not visions but certainly are magical. We must seize and celebrate them. Enter February break, right on cue. I urge you to allow time to disrupt the everyday. Approach the week with a spirit of discovery, intentionally focusing on your child’s experience to see things through their eyes. How are they experiencing the world? Where are they finding wonder? Where do you see evidence of their learning? More than anything, though, it is my hope that our school community takes a breath in the course of this busy year—and that you take a moment to see something new in your child that perhaps you haven’t seen before.

Enjoy your break, everyone. May it be a joyful and restorative one.

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