Spring Break

What did you do for Spring Break?

This question was asked of me several times earlier this week, as I ran into various people I had not seen for seven to perhaps ninety-nine days.  In the few weeks before last week, I was asked by several people, "What are you doing for Spring Break?"

The answer is and was...nothing.

I wish I had known what last Tuesday was going to be like.  I would have answered "Watching the final wintry precipitation of the winter of 2013-14, as ice falls on my deck on April 15."  I could have answered "Doing taxes."  Truthfully, we did not do "nothing".  We went to the Stonewall Jackson Shrine and the Chancelloresville Battlefield to learn more about where Stonewall Jackson was shot and where he died.  If you want to count the weekend before and after Spring Break, we cleaned the house and went to the National Zoo.  Other than that, I went to work and coached soccer.  I do that every other week in the spring, so I consider the answer above to be, more or less, accurate.

I have few memories of doing anything for Spring Break growing up.  I remember going to Valley Forge one year, on a school sponsored trip.  I went college visiting a few times, twice for me and at least once with an older brother.  My boys are a little young to start visiting colleges, so that isn't an option for us, yet.  I write this while laughing at the email received from our elementary school today promoting college week, when the boys should wear a college t-shirt to school and teachers will tell stories about college and high school students will come to the elementary school to talk about college.  I wish I were kidding.

The point of this post is supposed to be about Spring Break.  I have to, pardon the pun, take a break to explore this college thing.  My boys are in 4th and 2nd grade.  They have been to two colleges so far in their lives.  We went to William and Mary during a Thanksgiving in Williamsburg, so they could see where Dad went to school and Dad could see how much more fun college looks today than twenty years ago.  They have been to George Mason a few times for a basketball game, a swim meet and to take the security tag off a sweatshirt mail ordered from William and Mary.  In case that wasn't clear, The Wife bought me a sweatshirt from William and Mary for Christmas a couple years ago.  She ordered it in the mail and the geniuses at the William and Mary bookstore didn't take the security tag off before they shipped it to us.  William and Mary has a pretty good reputation as a school.  This little incident won't help that reputation.

Notwithstanding taking my children onto two college campuses, the idea of a college week in a Fairfax County elementary school sounds ridiculous to me.  I grew up in Fairfax County.  College is not a question of "if".  College is the thing you do after high school.  You go from elementary school, to middle school to high school to college.  Then you figure the rest out.  I understand that not everyone in the county automatically plans to go to college, but most do, and you don't need to start pushing the benefits of college to a bunch of ten year olds.  They are going to get it non-stop from 7th grade through senior year.  Let them enjoy being a child for a few years.  Of course, my boys will be wearing William and Mary shirts.

My boys also don't need college week.  Middle will be going to the University of Miami, because LeBron James lives in Miami and LeBron James knows Middle because a babysitter tweeted LeBron about him in 2012.  I have no idea if LeBron really lives in Miami.  The tweeting thing is real, but I doubt LeBron even saw it amongst the millions of tweets he probably gets every year.  We haven't raised the "possibility" that by the time Middle goes to college LeBron will be retired or that he may leave Miami next summer to go to another city where he can win a title.  We also haven't told him that Virginia has some really good state schools and we aren't too keen on paying a private school's tuition in Florida, when he can probably get a "more distinguished" degree from a school right here at home for about 1/3 the price.  That won't matter to him because he will be on a basketball scholarship, like every other average sized, suburban white kid in America.  So we just let him have his dream.

Eldest is going to William and Mary or George Mason, because he understands the benefits of a good state school and wants to be close to home.  After college he will be moving in next door to us.  Eldest really knows how make his Mom smile.

Youngest hasn't made his college decision, yet.  That pre-school isn't doing their duty.  We need a college week for the pre-K crowd immediately.  Time is running out.

Wow, that was a distraction.  My original point was supposed to be about taking the family on educational trips, like Civil War Battlefields and the zoo.  I was going to talk about fun trips, family trips, educational trips, torturing children with museums and long walks through the woods.  I got distracted by the college thing.  This is poetic, because during my four years in college, I got distracted by everything except the college thing.  I wonder if the teachers will tell stories about their distractions during college.  Somehow I doubt that they all spent all their college time in the library.  What do you tell elementary school kids about college?  Studying?  Learning?  Fun?  Parties?  I wouldn't even know what to say.  The best part of college is something you don't want to reveal to a bunch of 5th Graders.  All the more reason this is ridiculous.

However, since the school is doing it, I better get on board.  I am already planning our college trip for next Spring Break.  Eldest will be in 5th Grade.  It's never to early to start looking at those Virginia state schools.  Charlottesville, Richmond and the 'burgs:  William, Black, Harrison and Fred. At least I will have a better answer to "What did you do for Spring Break?"  I've got a year to come up with an answer to "Why?"