Summers seem so tender, with weightless afts spent watching waves
Caress the beach and gentle breeze make aspens sway.
Summers seem so life eternal, so everlasting;
Till back in room K2,
With pen in hand,
They seem to last but just one day.
Every year I say it – and every year it seems a little truer – but summers get shorter all the time. I remember the summers of my youth. Lifetimes they were! We did everything it was possible to do on this earth back then – and had time to spare.
Glorious they were. Walking through the country roads to friends' farms – jumping from great towers of hay bales, landing on a pile of loose hay on the ground twenty feet below. Spending days by streams, below bridges, racing tiny speedboats made from broken twigs or leaves. Eating berries from the hedges as we went. Planning great bicycle journeys that would open our minds and broaden our horizons and make us men. Summers back then were real summers. At least in my slightly rose tinted memory they were.
Now summers are solely a time to recharge. They have ceased to exist as entities in their own right and now I look on them only as a break in the school calendar. How I long for the time I used to see school as something which existed simply to separate the holidays. This year it felt like it was already August by the time I had locked my classroom door at the end of term. July just sort of disappeared. And August was over in the blink of an eye. If you were to ask me how I spent it I would um and ah for a while, look around the room for inspiration, clear my throat and say, “Did I ever tell you about the times we used to jump off bales of hay and play pooh sticks at the bridge…”
So here I am, at my desk, about to see my form class for the first time in six weeks that that have gone by like six minutes - like a train that has forgotten to stop at the station.
Truth be told it’s good to be back. Back to the grindstone, routines, challenges… etc etc. Don’t tell my pupils but I miss them when I’m away from work. It’s not a dislike of teaching that makes me long for the heady days of my youth. I wouldn’t want to lose the joys that exist from September to June. I just want my Julys and Augusts back. Please.
Glorious they were. Walking through the country roads to friends' farms – jumping from great towers of hay bales, landing on a pile of loose hay on the ground twenty feet below. Spending days by streams, below bridges, racing tiny speedboats made from broken twigs or leaves. Eating berries from the hedges as we went. Planning great bicycle journeys that would open our minds and broaden our horizons and make us men. Summers back then were real summers. At least in my slightly rose tinted memory they were.
Now summers are solely a time to recharge. They have ceased to exist as entities in their own right and now I look on them only as a break in the school calendar. How I long for the time I used to see school as something which existed simply to separate the holidays. This year it felt like it was already August by the time I had locked my classroom door at the end of term. July just sort of disappeared. And August was over in the blink of an eye. If you were to ask me how I spent it I would um and ah for a while, look around the room for inspiration, clear my throat and say, “Did I ever tell you about the times we used to jump off bales of hay and play pooh sticks at the bridge…”
So here I am, at my desk, about to see my form class for the first time in six weeks that that have gone by like six minutes - like a train that has forgotten to stop at the station.
Truth be told it’s good to be back. Back to the grindstone, routines, challenges… etc etc. Don’t tell my pupils but I miss them when I’m away from work. It’s not a dislike of teaching that makes me long for the heady days of my youth. I wouldn’t want to lose the joys that exist from September to June. I just want my Julys and Augusts back. Please.
