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Commence the Season of Love

Happy Seis de Mayo to all who celebrate. The beginning of May is a time of considerable celebration. There’s May Day in many nations across the globe on May 1. The city of Fort Worth celebrated MayFest for the 54th time in Trinity Park on the weekend of May 1-3. Who can forget Star Wars Day on May the 4th? Or who remembers Cinco de Cuatro from Arrested Development? And of course, let’s all recall everyone’s favorite excuse to eat tacos and drink margaritas, Cinco de Mayo on May 5. Perhaps you cannot recall, depending on how much you indulged. And as a retired educator, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention National Teacher Appreciation Week from May 4-8. I’ve already written about teaching before, but there’s still no time like this week to thank a former teacher of yours, or your child’s teacher, or just about any teacher you know. You can even feel free to apologize to your teacher friends on behalf of all the demagogues out there demonizing teachers in the current political climate. Personally, though, I look at all the festivities occurring at the onset of May and treat them as part of a larger theme I’ve observed this month. Welcome to The Season of Love.

“Wait, isn’t the season of love back in February, during Valentine’s Day?” you might ask. Or perhaps you view the Christmas season as a proverbial “season of love,” given the spirit of the holiday. Ironically, though, for educators, the period of time between the holidays and Spring Break is what I call “the Season of Hate,” as I wrote about recently. It’s cold, it still gets dark early, the school year’s only half-done, teachers and students are tired of each other, plus there’s a bunch of testing no one cares about and everyone hates. Valentine’s Day is essentially an excuse for those in the education world to engage in chocolate therapy and hope that Russell Stover box makes a successful dingy across the sea of anxiety and dread. February is definitely NOT the season of love in the world of education. But May IS, thankfully. The rain from April begins to clear away. The sky is a little brighter, as is everyone’s mood. The testing no one can stand is behind you. Sure, there are AP Exams, but those are tests that students actively chose to register and study for, based on classes they elected to take. There’s actually a true payoff for success, unlike STAAR, SSTAR, STARRR, or whatever TEA calls it in the future. So AP Exams, despite what you might suspect, actually fit fairly neatly into the Season of Love.

Why do I call it that? Because the month of May, in classrooms across the U.S., features a rhythm that is nearly 100% counter to the mood from February. The end is near. Summer approaches. Now that STAAR testing is over, instruction doesn’t have a specter looming over it. Teachers can teach to the curriculum (what’s left of it) and dare I say, offer lessons that students might genuinely enjoy. Because everyone’s T-TESS observations should be over by now, teachers don’t have to fret over classroom visits, creating the proverbial dog-and-pony show designed more to impress administrators than to teach students. Students might even get the opportunity to take field trips — actually learning-based trips, not trips to the park or zoo — and go beyond the Death-by-Canvas approach that has become so prevalent since 2020. (Don’t get me wrong; technology can be a valuable tool for learning when used appropriately…that’ll be a different post someday.) The bottom line for teachers is that they don’t feel compelled in May to “teach to the test,” to put it tritely. They can just teach.

But it’s the Season of Love for students, too, for many of the same reasons. They are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of another academic year. Many are approaching their final days at their campus. Of course, 12th graders are nearing graduation day. Each day during the month of May truly is counted down across thousands of campuses, and with that countdown comes a release, a weight lifted off the students’ shoulders, little by little. For most of them, that release coincides with a better mood and attitude toward their teachers. They come to love their teachers (again, for some) with appreciation for all the effort expended by teachers throughout the school year. Of course, this love sometimes comes with a couple of caveats. For one thing, there are some students who’ve expended so little effort themselves over the previous 6 weeks, 12 weeks, or even the semester, that their hopes of earning credit for the course are all but gone. These students often find love in their hearts for their teachers in hopes of a quid pro quo, where the teachers might find mutual love, and therefore, pity, and therefore, acceptance of missing work so that the student might pass. This begging-based love isn’t typically dominant in the Season of Love, but it’s certainly present. Similarly, it happens without fail that some of the absolute worst students — the ones who’ve presented behavior problems, poor attitudes, and general belligerence for, I don’t know, 36 weeks? — are the students who magically have love in their hearts for all their teachers in the month of May. Are those terrible students the same ones that are also begging for a last-gasp chance to pass? Sometimes.

And sometimes, teachers will acquiesce to student desires, not out of pity or because they’re “caving in.” My experience is that most teachers will accept late work and offer a bare minimum of credit in hopes that it will allow the student to pass. Anything is better than a score of 0, and actual honest attempts at completing assignments late are better than never doing it at all. Most teachers are compassionate enough to make allowances. Few teachers ever get into the profession with a goal of exercising ultimate power over students or feeling glee at seeing failing grades, and those psychopaths that do eventually exit this career fairly quickly. Teachers are remarkably adept at offering grace to students, probably because they also seek grace from administrators when a lesson doesn’t go well or a classroom is tough to manage on a given day. Cookie-cutter perfection is not typical in an actual school campus, and it’s really not the foundation for effective learning. Learning is often most meaningful when it’s achieved in spite of adversity, even if that adversity is self-inflicted because, you know, children of all ages are immature and sometimes irresponsible. Sometimes the lessons learned through the grace of second, or third, or tenth chances are the ones that resonate for students long after they’ve forgotten the specific learning objectives stated for a given assignment.

When that grace is given, is it truly appreciated? I don’t have an honest answer. I’d like to think it is. Then again, I’d like to think that teachers receiving praise during National Teacher Appreciation Week are getting more than some lip service, a few nice notes, and a donut on Tuesday. The concept of “official” Teacher Appreciation dates back to the 1950s, and the current practice of celebrating National Teacher Appreciation Week during the month of May began in 1984. I honestly barely recall experiencing Teacher Appreciation Week while I was in the classroom. I do remember that central administrators would typically make the rounds to various campuses during the week to provide a nice lunch. But it was never a huge week-long celebration filled with daily activities, dress-up days, or rewards. That aspect of Teacher Appreciation Week wasn’t something I noticed until recently, when I was an administrator at the campus that would be my last stop in K-12 public education. There, Teacher Appreciation Week was a veritable event for which planning commenced basically right after Spring Break, if not before. These days, that appears to be the case at many campuses, as administrators work with local businesses and charitable organizations for sponsorships. They expend great effort to make the week seem truly special. I actually admired the resolve our administrative team showed in securing the variety of foods and gifts offered to teachers each year. And yet, some teachers actually complained about it. I remember one well-known teacher at that campus told an administrator that a particular lunch item was “an insult.” So much for grace, I guess. I understand that sometimes the so-called perks might end up being underwhelming, but I can guarantee it wasn’t for a lack of trying. And I feel sorry for those teachers who work in campuses where there is a lack of effort on the part of administration and community to make the week special, or where there is a lack of resources. Although I still maintain that we could eliminate Teacher Appreciation Week altogether if we simply extended to teachers the compensation and respect they deserve. Obviously, it would still be appropriate to thank teachers for their efforts in such an environment, but society wouldn’t see the need to set aside several days to provide so-called “perks” in an effort to assuage the sting of how poorly educators are treated throughout much of the year.

But the month of May? Regardless of difficulties of the past 8 months, the trinkets offered to teachers this week, the other festivities held throughout this week and month, or anything else, the month of May will forever remain unofficially the Season of Love in schools across the state and nation. Soak it in, show some compassion and grace, release the anxiety, and breathe easy, if only for a short time. One of the greatest things about the rhythm of the school year is that it ends. Most areas of life have a more constant cycle, and that cycle often enhances tension and suppresses love. If you’re enrolled or employed in a school, take some time to imbibe the glorious facets of this time of year.

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Another Favorite Holiday Season

What a lovely time of year this is. MLB have begun again, trees and flowers are blooming, the weather is currently quite nice, and to use a cliche, spring is in the air. I know there are things some people don’t like about spring, like pollen and bugs, but it’s still a hopeful season, and I enjoy it. It’s also home to my third favorite holiday of the year. If you’ve previously read my blog, you may have seen me post about my other two favorite holidays each year: Thanksgiving, which I value primarily because it is centered on gratitude, something to which we all need to devote more time; and New Year’s Eve/Day, because it’s an extension of the Christmas season without all the baggage, and because it represents new opportunities heading into another year. By now, you’ve probably guessed that my third favorite holiday is the one people across the globe celebrated this past weekend, Easter.

Technically, that’s Easter Sunday, according to the Catholic Church. Each day of this week on the Catholic calendar is officially tagged as “Easter _________” as part of the Octave of Easter. The Easter season itself lasts 50 days in Catholicism, culminating with Pentecost Sunday. So it’s truly another holiday season all its own, as opposed to a single day after which everyone simply moves on. Now, this post isn’t really designed as a theological lesson or some kind of evangelization imploring the reader to convert. I have plenty of friends who are non-religious and also know several people who are atheist. As someone who grew up and remains a faithful Catholic, I respect those viewpoints, so you won’t read any “He Is Risen” rhetoric here with explanation about what it should mean to your life. Although I will admit that, as a child attending early morning Mass on Easter Sunday, I did find the sun shining through the stained glass window and creating a colorful glow near the altar to be an inspiring sight. But that’s a tale for another time.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I find this time of year in general, and the Easter season in particular, to be joyful. Spring itself is a time of rebirth, whether it involves leaves growing back on the trees, someone hoping this is finally the year their team succeeds, a person recommitting to their baptismal promises in church, or everyone simply cleaning the back porch in preparation for cookouts and summer activities. We could also talk about what a great time it is for sports because of all the events happening or approaching. But I don’t want to list out all the ways spring is cool or bullet out “Top 10 things I love about Easter.” I just want to focus on three aspects of the holiday that I find most appealing.

Renewal. Let’s begin with the easiest and most obvious theme. As I said, this is what the Spring season is all about. In Catholicism (and several other Christian traditions), Easter follows Lent, which is a season of self-denial, sacrifice, and simplicity in preparation for the holiday. I happen to enjoy Lent because it represents a purging of vices and things that can pollute our lives, which juxtaposes well against the emotions and themes of the Easter season. The cleansing aspect of this time of year is definitely positive. “Spring cleaning” isn’t just about clutter in the house, garage, or porch. It also can be mental, emotional, and intellectual. For many people, the idea of renewal at this time of year may also remind them to reinforce some of the New Year’s Resolutions they made in January and have let slip over the first quarter of the year. Old habits die hard, as they say, so if you’ve managed to slip back into prior routines, no better time to root them out again than the spring. Get back to eating right, or driving better or calmer, or just making time for things that matter. Renewal can really mean “refocus,” if that’s what it takes. The renewal process can be as dramatic or as subtle as needed.

Part of the renewal process for me is a change of seasons, professionally. You might’ve read my most recent post about Winterguard, for which I have handled sound and announcing for several weeks now. The Easter season typically means that this year’s season has concluded, so it’s time for me to switch gears in my VO career to other work. I can put away PA gear that I’ve carried with me every weekend and focus more on working in my booth at home and marketing my skills and services to the right people. I will still participate in some live announce gigs (I have two coming up later in the spring that I will write about in May), but now it’s all about looking for commercial and narration work. I’m particularly excited about these prospects this year because I actually have far more time to devote to these pursuits.

Shifting Calendar Dates. This one may seem odd at first, but hear me out. Everybody knows that Christmas occurs on December 25, right? Some people even get so obnoxious about it that they’ll be able to tell you exactly how many days until Christmas today, April 9. So what date does Easter occur? Can’t say for sure, right? That’s because Easter is what’s called a “movable feast.” The rule of thumb is that Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of spring. There are some very specific rules in the Catholic tradition about the date of the equinox (March 21), along with the “Paschal” full moon, but you get the idea. Easter will always occur sometime between March 22 and April 25. Yes, there’s literally over a month of variance between the earliest and latest possible dates for Easter. It’s not fixed on the calendar like Christmas or Independence Day.

Some people find the movable nature of Easter to be confusing, but I have always enjoyed it. I find a certain charm in the knowledge that this year’s date for Easter will not be the same as next year’s. I also think it’s cool when Easter is super-early or super-late in the possible window. Because it’s based on lunar cycles, that shakes things up, and I am here for it. Heck, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, they use a Julian calendar instead of a Gregorian calendar, which places Orthodox Easter on a different date. This year it’s on April 12. Call me crazy, but I think that’s cool. I also enjoy how some years, the Easter season coincides with Passover in the Jewish tradition, and some years it doesn’t. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone to know that I spent 4 years early in my education career teaching World History and World Geography. One of the fundamental themes in both of those courses was the influence of religious beliefs and traditions on culture. Learning the nature of movable feasts in several religions was therefore emminently useful knowledge. You don’t have to memorize every rule for every religion to appreciate the influence holidays like this have on our lives, especially when it’s not a fixed, single-date holiday that comes and goes. Bring me a nice holiday season any day.

Lack of Commercialization. And more than anything, when you bring me that nice season, stop trying to convince me to buy stuff because of it. True story: one of the local morning news/lifestyle programs in Dallas ran a segment on “Easter gift ideas” last week. What?!?!? I mean, if you’re under 10-12, the old-fashioned Easter egg hunt is a fine activity. And perhaps some of the eggs will have something besides candy inside. Maybe the kids’ Easter baskets will have ONE item inside that’s not food or food-adjacent. I remember receiving a stuffed bunny wearing a baseball uniform in my Easter basket when I was 8, and it was cool. Other years, I got a couple of comic books since I often gave those up for Lent. But “Easter gifts?” You have got to be kidding me. We don’t need for Easter to become yet another gift-giving holiday.

Even as a child, one of the things I liked about Easter was the lack of things. After all, this wasn’t Jesus’ birthday. We had just spent the previous week focused on suffering and death. Easter was about resurrection from that death, but still…death, people. Not the same. Not about lights and decorations and things. Clearly a more serious message. Since you had given up something for Lent, the only “things” at Easter were whatever you had sacrificed, like the aforementioned comic, chocolate, your favorite TV show, snacks, whatever. When I was young, my family would typically go to early morning Mass on Easter Sunday (complete with stained glass glow), then we would go someplace nice for breakfast. Then it was typically back home for a nap since we got up so early. No gifts. And it was the greatest. 

Now, as a kid, I enjoyed getting Christmas gifts as much as the next guy. But Christmas was Christmas, and Easter was Easter. The Easter Bunny (or Easter Beagle, IYKYK) hides eggs; he doesn’t come down the chimney with a bag of gifts. Leave that to Santa Claus in the winter. And to this day, I still appreciate that aspect of Easter. I’ve previously written about how the Christmas season gets exhausting because there’s pressure to do things and buy stuff and do and buy and do and buy. Not so with Easter. If you’re religious, Easter is all about sacrifice and prayer leading up to it, then celebration of the miracle and all it implies for yourself in this life and the next. If you’re not religious, you can still get into the more secular aspects of Easter, like eggs and rabbits that shouldn’t go together but somehow do, or just get outside in great weather, go out to eat, and enjoy the day. And I know, capitalism, business, economic growth, yada yada. I taught that stuff for two decades. But there will be plenty of opportunities to buy things that don’t have to tie in with Easter. The U.S. is clearly a consumer-based culture, and it’s not like any business is going to wither away and die just because Easter sales fell short of the forecast.

The bottom line for me at Easter can be summed up by what my family did this year. We attended Mass, came home, and relaxed. We watched baseball on TV. We had a nice meal together. We enjoyed each other’s company. We got outside and enjoyed some great weather. As the season progresses, I have some personal goals and objectives to attend to — some related to faith, some just things to be completed, physically and intellectually — so there is a sense of renewal. And we’ll come back and do it all again a year from now, even though I can’t tell you the exact date yet. And that’s awesome.