ABSTRACT
In schools across the country, the holiday season is both a joyous time and a stressful time. At the elementary and middle levels, many students are very excited about the impending holidays and find it difficult to focus. At the same time, these children’s teachers are working frantically to cover the entire curriculum that they had planned to teach before the winter break. Like any other school, we have definitely recommitted ourselves to academic achievement as our number one item of core business. Yet we realize that our kids are still kids and that our teachers still have families of their own. Certainly, we make the most of all instructional time allotted to us, but at this time of year, our teachers are more interested in getting through the last two weeks of school as smoothly as possible. It is not a time to consider new teaching strategies. As a result, our last two Friday Focus writings of the year dealt with personal, rather than professional, issues.
