Thursday, June 23, 2016
Time to catch a frog
It's a whirlwind at the end of the school year. Now as the perfect blue of the June sky beckons, it's time to go out and catch a frog.
There is something about the rhythm and pattern of our school lives that leads to a winding up at the end of the year - and then an inevitable winding down. Could it be that Shows of Work, field trips, launching a student-made boat on the pond, graduation speeches, our 25th Anniversary Celebration, a ground-breaking ceremony, the Board of Trustees annual retreat...et al...leave us craving the relative simplicity of summer? Would we feel such a sense of accomplishment and the sweet pleasure of an iced tea on the patio if the ending of the year were not so frenetic?!
On the radio the other day, I heard a song I fondly remember from childhood and our family's seemingly endless seven-hour drive to the beach every summer. Now I'm dating myself - it was Nat King Cole's Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer. That song just sounds like summer to me.
I think that "lazy" is the key word. It is great to be lazy in the summer - and it can be the impetus for flights of crazy imagination. Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Broadway's Hamilton expresses it beautifully in this interview in GQ about how the key to parenting might be less parenting. He recalls a car ride as a kid where a friend entertained himself with a stick - just a stick - for three hours.
At Planet Parker camp, kids are often down at the pond catching frogs - and they develop a whole fantasy about even that. "This frog can't afford us," I heard one girl say. What funny story about frogs lead to that idea?!
So, it's officially summer - grab a soda, some pretzels and a beer - or a frog - and enjoy some lazy days. You've earned it!
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