School break this week gives us time to relax and re-energize

It’s the Friday before Thanksgiving Break, and 30,000-plus teachers and students across the Muscogee County School District are operating on warp speed, praying the day away so we can start a much-needed weeklong break. If we could put those dismissal bells on fast forward, we certainly would. It’s a hurry-up, finish your work, “Love ya, goodbye” kind of day, and most of us don’t apologize for longing for 3:25 p.m. to come quickly.

Teachers love their students to pieces, and being their cheerleader, mentor, mommas and daddies, advocate, nurse, counselor and coach are roles teachers accept wholeheartedly. Nowadays, fulfilling all of these needs is the unwritten portion of a teacher’s job description they accept without hesitation. No amount of money can measure the worth of teachers, and to a teacher, no amount of treasure can measure the pricelessness of a week off to re-energize.

So next week we will wake up a little later, stay in our pajamas a little longer, and watch a little too much TV. But we certainly deserve it. For a few precious minutes we will not be thinking of our students. We will not be planning their lessons or grading their papers. We will not be worrying about keeping them engaged or becoming anxious about their futures. For a few precious moments we will pamper ourselves and relax. Because we certainly deserve that.

But then a Publix commercial comes on, or we flip the channels and stumble upon a Hallmark movie, and like moths to a flame, we watch with Kleenex in hand. Then, the floodgates open. We remember our students who don’t have nice flannel, footie pajamas or who woke up to no electricity and a cold house … or no house at all. We think about the two warm meals our kids get at school and how some bellies are going to be empty this week, bellies that belong to familiar faces that have become etched in our minds.

Faces like the one who belongs to the senior who proudly was wearing his JROTC uniform with white socks because he owns no black ones. Or the freshman who was sent to the Bradley Center for expressing suicidal thoughts. Or the son of a mother on probation for truancy. Or the young man who sleeps with one eye open at the local boys’ home so he can protect what little he owns. These are the faces teachers see when the school doors close. These are the names they recite when they say their evening prayers. And these are the situations they remember when they sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, thankful for the opportunity to lend a hand and fulfill a role, but heartbroken that the need even exists.

Let’s face it, many of us cannot comprehend what some of our local children experience. We load our plates on Thanksgiving as tradition dictates. We hold hands with our families and thank God for our health, happiness and wholeness. We remember those less fortunate than us, and then we settle in to a day of fullness.

May we, this Thanksgiving, bend our hearts and our thoughts to the thousands of our Columbus children who will not be full this season —empty in so many ways. And maybe say a special little prayer for the role players we know as public school teachers. Because they certainly deserve that.

This story was originally published November 21, 2017 at 7:49 PM with the headline "School break this week gives us time to relax and re-energize."