Presidents' Day

I’m looking out my window, and there are kids playing, so it must be a holiday again. These kids get off school for everything nowadays. (Don’t I sound like an old geezer?) When I was in school (a parochial one,) we rarely had no school on federal holidays, because there were so many religious days we took off. By the time I was teaching, some of that had changed – we had a combination of both, but still had to complete 180 days in school. When I became a principal, I worked with my faculty to choose the holidays throughout the year.

I could rationalize many of the choices by having the students attend school on several holy days. They could go across the way to church in the morning, and often I would plan learning experiences around some fun (guest speakers, science demonstrations, --thons to race money for charities, and civic volunteering.) Presidents’ Day was one I pushed as a holiday each year. My thinking was: it’s been almost two months since the Christmas break, usually the winter drearies are upon us, and it’s still a way to go until Easter. So I really tried to have the teachers see it from that perspective. We were expected to schedule a certain number of days as “no school,” and I tried to impress upon the faculty to s-p-r-e-a-d them out. I knew the demands of teaching could be overwhelming at times, and we needed breaks to revive our spirits.  Of course, that’s not the meaning of this holiday. We’re meant to reflect on the achievements of our leaders, and teachers would have to use that as a class lesson.

In the “olden days,” there were two separate holidays – Lincoln’s Birthday on the 12^th, and Washington on the 22^nd.  The public school had both as holidays, and we were so jealous! Now all our holidays are set for Mondays, and these two are now combined. Times change – grow with it!  This is the weekend for snow trips (we have no snow this year) and a time for stores to have more sales. This one seems centered on mattresses. It used to be that January was devoted to “white sales” for the purchase of linens. So the marketing poobahs now have towel and sheet sales in January, but mattresses in February. And don’t forget the auto industry which has sales for everything.

In Canada, they celebrate Family Day today. Doesn’t that have a nice feeling about it? I think we in the U.S. need a family day as well! So whether you’re working or not, have a nice holiday, but save some energy – tomorrow is Mardi Gras!  

OK I’m still working on getting rid of the ‘capchas,’ but I don’t seem to be doing it. I’ve followed the instructions I’ve received – dashboard to settings to comments, scroll down, remove the word verification, and save. Here’s the problem – I don’t SEE anything that’s says word verification!! I’ll keep at it…

Peace,

Muff