{"id":4021,"date":"2012-03-28T03:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T03:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4021"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"spring-break-article-for-the-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4021","title":{"rendered":"Spring Break Article for the Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wrote the following article while on spring break in Le Mars, Iowa last week and it was published in The Republic just yesterday.\u00a0 The last point about good friends and late night conversations is a shout out to some Iowans close to our hearts!Here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The moment high school students drag themselves back to\ntheir desks in January for the second semester, their countdown to spring break\ncommences.\u00a0 January and February are long\nmonths.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But\nsometimes when break finally arrives, the fantasy of a true break runs into the\nharsh reality of homework.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some\nteachers feel the need to assign projects and homework over the week of break\nin order to cover all the material necessary before the fast-approaching end of\nthe school year \u2013 or perhaps, one suspects, just as often to prove they are\ndeadly serious about academics and the rigors of their particular subject\narea.\u00a0 And we have all known those (few) teachers\nwho simply have a pronounced sadistic streak. They seem to revel in the thought\nof their pet project hovering over the heads of their students for the week.\u00a0 They have spent years thickening their own\nskins to easily withstand the curses poured down on them by students and parents\nalike on that final weekend of break when the looming due dates are tearfully \u2013\nand frantically – addressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a\nteacher who believes spring break should be bona fide time off from all school\nwork.\u00a0 So even though my sophomores are\nin the midst of a research paper, I refuse to hang even a minor deadline over\ntheir break.\u00a0 On the day we return to\nclass, there will be no note cards, no rough drafts nor even a Works Cited page\ndue.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is\nnot to say that I hope students will turn their brains off and vegetate in\nfront of a video game for a week.\u00a0 Or\neven sleep twenty hours a day.\u00a0 (Although\njudging from their stupor in class recently, some of my students would be wise\nto catch up on their sleep.)<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rather,\nmy wish for them would be a spring break just as educational as any week of the\nschool year.\u00a0 Or more so.\u00a0 It was Mark Twain who once declared, \u201cI never\nlet my schooling interfere with my education.\u201d\u00a0\nThat was his way of emphasizing the many things worth learning that far\nsurpass in ultimate importance the Pythagorean Theorem, the proper form of a\nparenthetical notation or the cause of the War of 1812 combined.\u00a0 Twain reminds us that we are quite as likely\nto learn key lessons outside of the classroom as inside.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Take my\nfamily\u2019s spring break, for example.\u00a0 As I\nwrite, my wife and kids and I are in Le Mars, Iowa.\u00a0 I know what you are thinking.\u00a0 Who drives 700 miles to a small town in northwest\nIowa for spring break when the same mileage could take you to Pensacola,\nFlorida?\u00a0 But twenty years ago I took my\nfirst job as a new college graduate right here in Le Mars as a youth pastor. \u00a0Our trip to Iowa has several purposes: to\ncatch up with old friends, to introduce my family to them (and vice versa) and\nalso to seek financial and prayer support for our upcoming move and ministry to\nHaiti.\u00a0 But for all that, it can\u2019t help but\nbe educational too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

A handful of the lessons impressed on my family and me this\nweek:<\/p>\n\n\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\n\u00a0You only\nneed to drive two states over to discover curious cultural differences.\u00a0 For example, sloppy joe sandwiches here are\ncalled \u201ctaverns\u201d or (much less appealingly) \u201cloose meat sandwiches\u201d and are\noften served without the sauce \u2026 just fried hamburger and onion.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nThe town of Le Mars is the \u201cIce Cream Capital of\nthe World\u201d.\u00a0 This is the birthplace of\nWells\u2019 Blue Bunny, whose factories crank out 250,000 gallons of ice cream each\nday.\u00a0 Annually, the company uses enough\nchocolate on their ice cream bars to put a one inch thick coating over 47\nfootball fields.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nTime refuses to stand still.\u00a0 Yesterday I walked into the local McDonalds,\nwhich has long been a gathering place for farmers enjoying coffee and\nfellowship, and saw an eighty year old man in overalls and tattered baseball\ncap sitting with a cup of coffee.\u00a0 He\nlooked every bit the stereotype of the weathered farmer except for the cell\nphone in his left hand and the IPad propped on the table in front of him. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nOld friends are the best friends. And late night\nconversations are more fun than the fanciest amusement park.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Some of these lessons I already\nknew, but it\u2019s nice to experience them afresh without the pressure of school\nwork bearing down on these precious days.\u00a0\nThe research papers will wait.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote the following article while on spring break in Le Mars, Iowa last week and it was published in The Republic just yesterday.\u00a0 The last point about good friends and late night conversations is a shout out to some Iowans close to our hearts!Here it is: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The moment high school students drag themselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4023,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions\/4023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}