Ten, 9, 8... Countdowns are popular. New Year’s Eve, the end of a game or the end of the school year. 7,6,5... They are a signal to get excited, a signal that the end is near! 4,3,2... and why not, endings deserve to be anticipated and celebrated. But, in practice, there is more to every ending than meets the eye, more than just the excitement of finishing. And 1... An ending is ripe with contrasting emotions. A basket of forces each competing for your full attention. As we approach the end of the school year it pays for us to unpack and delve deep into these forces that inevitably call to us and perhaps confuse us as we try to revel and reflect at the same time.

I like to refer back to the end-of-school-year countdown because it illustrates a large sample of these emotions on a few different groups. There are smiling teachers who seem to be counting down the minutes until their well-deserved summer break. Many of these same teachers, though, seem to put on a celebratory face for those around, when they are, in fact, simultaneously experiencing real sentiments of angst and sadness as the year comes to a close. There are the children who grow giddy with each passing moment as the final bell approaches, but who is to say that underneath that glee there isn't a child who is also struggling and unsure of what their next stage of schooling holds? Or a child who is also going to miss the day in and day out that school assures? Or might be misbehaving and teachers wonder what has happened? And then there are the parents who may also be showing their relief as they have shepherded their children from the starting line to the finish line of another school year, but what if they are also contemplating how this moment did not manifest as it was supposed to? What needs to be done now? What can be done now? Endings are fleeting as they tend to dissipate as quickly as they arrive. The time we spend contemplating and anticipating, the good and the bad, is much more significant than the time we spend in the ending moment. The ending quickly becomes your new beginning and the cycle begins again with new perspective and experience guiding our next round of expectation and anticipation.

At SAR, the school where I work, we prioritize making sure that school is not just a place where teachers go to work and parents send their children to learn, but also a place where each of these groups feels safe to grow and explore; themselves and the community at large. We strive to make our school a place that is genuinely missed as endings transition to beginnings and school years end and new chapters begin. This is seldom clearer than during the exuberance and palpable hysteria that builds during our last-minute countdown. I happen to love the atmosphere the countdown creates. We come together and finish this unbelievable year long journey together, not as individuals, but rather as a collective whole. We don't single out individual accomplishments here, rather we celebrate each person as a part of the whole, student and faculty, and the moments that made us all stronger; challenges and successes alike. This is really beautiful. But maybe we don't go far enough to embrace the competing emotions that pop up for members of the community. The message that an ending is not and should not be a depletion down to zero; like a great workout. As you push to the end of your workout session, you hear someone say “empty your tank” or “you can push to the end, keep going”. But interestingly, no one is hoping for another 45 minutes cycling session when it is done. The ending of a school year feels different. It should be your next jumping-off point. It should be equal parts ending and beginning, all at once. So, maybe we need to think about this as we do the counting of the Omer from Pesach to Shavuot. From the moment Hashem donned us a nation and delivered us our freedom from Egypt we count up to the moment of revelation where Moshe climbed Mount Sinai and bonded us with Hashem for all eternity at the moment of Revelation. We count up when we are excited for something, when it is leading to something greater. Why not add that in to our obsession with count-downs. How appropriate would it be for the count-down to have a counterbalance just the like the many emotions that continuously balance one another?

I tend to be a "glass half full" type of person. Always trying to find the good or the positive in everything and counter-balance the bubbling worries that the unknown often elicits. So, as another end of year approaches, I get reflective and I get positive. I work hard to celebrate the journey and the mini journeys, the growth and the progress. I talk about the moments that we are proud of and the moments that we will be proud of as experience transforms to wisdom, which culminates as a blueprint for next time. I applaud the individuals as well as the larger communities of which they are the essence. Goals accomplished are wonderful, but goals unmet do not create despair. We are a species that evolves and a missed milestone can be more powerful than an expectation met; the individual need just recognize the opportunity. The journey up the mountain is hard and never linear, but it is worth it. There are ups and downs and lots of meanderings and that journey is as much the goal as reaching the top.

So, as we come to another fleeting ending of another one of our mini journeys, my teachers and I will be painting the emergency stairwells in our building. I think there is no better metaphor for growth and progress than a staircase. The only way to elevate yourself up a staircase is to "push down to go up." How apt a message for this most skilled and special group of educators. We are all at different points on our journey and on this staircase. Some of us are on our way up, others are going down to go up and others may be transitioning on a platform from one ending to another beginning. They are all experiencing the waterfall of emotions that accompany these individual moments and they are all looking for the support and strength that our community intrinsically delivers. As we come to the end and begin again let's remember to count up as we revel and reflect all at the same time.