Welcoming Summer

During my final session with students in kindergarten and first grade earlier this week, I read A Fine Fine School by Sharon Creech. Mr. Keene, the overzealous principal, is so enamored with how much the children are learning that he decides to hold even more school – first weekends, then holidays, then all summer long. “We will learn everything!” he boasts.

Eventually, a brave young girl named Tillie reports to him that – with all this school – not everyone is learning. Beans, her dog, has not learned to sit, her little brother has not learned to skip, and she has not learned how to climb a tree and “sit in it for a whole hour.” This argument resonates with Mr. Keene, who dismisses the boys and girls for the summer.

From my perspective as a Middle School teacher, Mr. Keene would be proud of all that we have accomplished this year. Without exams and field trips, we had that many more days of teaching and learning in the classroom. Now that June has arrived, I suspect that many of our teachers and students feel like the characters in the book – like they’ve been in school “every single day” for a long time.

Even as we have analyzed novels, practiced math facts, explored different cultures, built cell models, and completed a variety of projects, Tillie’s point is worth remembering. There’s plenty that we don’t learn in school. I asked Mrs. Fisher’s first graders what they hoped to learn this summer. Here are some of their responses:

• Swim in the deep end of the pool
• Do a back handspring
• Stand on my head
• Walk on a wall
• Climb a tree

In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” to describe the phenomenon of children spending more and more time inside. While we scheduled plenty of recess this year, we have all spent much more time on various screens over the past fifteen months. Now is our chance to combat this trend. You’ll note that most of the activities on the first grade list take place outdoors. As we head into summer, my advice is simple: lock the devices in a drawer, apply sunscreen if necessary, hand your children water bottles, and then boot them out of the house. Summer is a time to be less plugged in, less connected to the various media that have monopolized our daily lives for too long. Take the family camping, walk barefoot through the grass, build a sandcastle, catch lightning bugs, set your alarm to watch the sunrise, stay up late to gaze at the stars, create a sidewalk mural, or, as my mother-in-law advised in a toast at our wedding twenty-one years ago, just “play in the dirt.”

Tillie is a wise young woman. This unprecedented year has come to an end. With one final expression of gratitude – to our teachers, for showing up each day and doing the impossible; and to our families, for making sacrifices with the health and safety of our community in mind – I say simply, class dismissed. May your summers be filled with breakfasts at the table instead of the car, homework-free afternoons, plenty of fresh air, new experiences, and memorable family moments.