Slow down? I didn't see a yellow light...

"Slow down, you move too fast. 

You got to make the morning last.

 Just kicking down the cobble stones. 

Looking for fun and feelin' groovy."

I used to love this song. I remember singing it in elementary school thinking "yea, that's cool" and later in high school thinking, "That's how life should be." But four years of liberal arts has oddly reformed my hippy ways and as Simon and Garfunkel creep into my head on this Saturday night I think, "Slow down? But there's so much left to do." 

My conscription as a teacher has perhaps changed my ways. I can not lolly gag on pursuing a student to do his or her homework and I cannot put off lesson planning until the last minute. It's not moving fast, but moving fast enough to catch up the students, my students, to grade level. The morning has to last, only in the sense that I hope my students continue to read and do math out of school. I wish I felt groovy, but I knew the life of a teacher had set in when at approximately 7 pm on a Saturday night I received a phone call about school supplies. 

I know this song was written in a different time (and I know that it was not written about education), but I can't help to wonder why, of all songs, this song pops into my head. I wish I had an answer...but I don't. Unfortunately, I've only been a teacher for four weeks and I've been told I won't have answers for some time now. But I'm thinking maybe on my way to buy supplies tomorrow I'll take a little break to smell some roses.