Dude. Be nice.

It's in the air like the scent of burnt popcorn from the teacher workroom fogging the halls. It's on our faces like thick blue cupcake icing that will never, never wash off. 

What is it, you ask?

The spring slide. The end of the year blues. The how-many-more-days-do-we-have weekly question. Yup, it's that time of year.

It happens annually. Spring Break concludes, and it takes all of our patience and enthusiasm with it. Students go off for a week and leave any interest and motivation under the blankets where they slept their break away. We teachers leave our efforts to collaborate and abilities to reason in the pages of our reads and on the beaches of our trips. And there is just never. enough. coffee. Ever.

That sad and disappointing part of the spring slide/endofyearblues is that it leaves us snarking at each other and our students. Our patience is minuscule and our tempers are pre-lit. And everyone - everyone - we encounter wears a target gleaming, waiting for our death stares and cruel word darts. The classes we like. The teams we work with. The family who supports us. No one is immune.

So what do we do?

The answer is simple: 

Let's be nice by sending a card to people who do good things. Last year, I sent a thank you card each week during the all of month of May and the part of June we were in school. It was my Friday ritual, and I found myself looking forward to it! I spent the first part of my Friday conference period thinking about the awesome people around me and selecting one to focus on. Then, I filled a blank card with my thoughts and delivered. Sometimes I got a huge thank you in return. Sometimes I never saw the reaction. Regardless, I spent time smiling about someone awesome, and it fueled me.

Let's be nice by picking up a piece of trash in the hallway. There is always at least one piece someone dropped in their rush to beat the tardy bell. How many times do we typically walk past it? Why not just grab it and continue moving, depositing it on our way to our next destination? 

Let's be nice by smiling. At everyone. EVERYONE! In class, let's smile. Smile when students enter and when they turn in work. Smile when they wake up with a red mark on their foreheads from improperly opting to put their head on the desk rather than read. When we pass people in the hallway, let's smile rather than avoid eye contact like we are in the waiting room at the doctor's office. Smile at the aide who brings a pass for a student. Show those pearly whites to a custodial staff member and a security guard (even if he never smiles in return!). Let's just smile! It's much more fun than a grimace, and it feels fantastic!

Let's be nice by participating in the #tweetsofgratitude on Fridays. My friend Joanna Crawford does them weekly, and I love participating! Nothing like some public praise via the Twitters to raise the kindness factor. For our less techy friends, how about a post-it on a desk for a kid or peer? Better yet, stick that post-it on a surprise Starbucks or Diet Coke on the desk of a peer. That is sure to make someone's day!

I plan to do my best to be nice by doing these things in the final weeks of school. Think I'm gonna begin my summer reading list while I'm at it. And, I'll ask my students for recommendations - with a smile! It'll be fun!

Won't you join me?