‘Tis the season for clearing all the errors and warnings, so the school year can be officially closed out.

I bet you thought it was all over when the students got on the bus for the last time, the teachers punched in the last grades, and the seniors threw their caps in their air to celebrate graduation. 

Oh no. That’s just for show. There is much more that goes on behind the scenes, for when the party’s over, the clean-up crew really gets started. 

But I like it. Some of us are made for clearing the errors and the warnings of the various educational student data platforms, and before I go further, a word:

(Student information systems are deep recesses of data, requiring various checkpoints throughout the year that culminate in year-end state reporting requirements. Do not think that having errors and warnings indicates a problem with a district, because we all have them, just like we all have students, books, computers, and cooties. But we do get a chance to correct the issues, just like cleaning out our lockers, before the final snapshot of the school year’s data is taken on the third Friday in June.)

This season should be a holiday. I ought to put up special decorations to celebrate the occasion, but my blue rubber duck and my red sand hourglass are enough bling for me.

I earned the hourglass by redeeming tickets at the Rock’it Lanes Arcade in Panama City Beach. I could have chosen one with green sand, but doesn’t red make more of a statement? After all, that’s what the Wicked Witch of the West had in her classic hourglass, the better to torment Dorothy as the grains slipped through and time grew short.

But for me, Miss ADHD Brain here, the hourglass gets me focused. It takes thirty minutes for the sand to run through, which is usually plenty long enough for me to get my data head on my shoulders and start plowing through the problems.

The rubber duck came from a professional development training on teaching practices in computer science. Here’s the scenario: you have a large class of thirty very eager and needy eighth graders who all have their hands in the air because they don’t know why their code won’t work. 

What do you do when you’re spread as thin as the scrapings of the peanut butter jar? 

You give each of your students a duck, and you tell them to talk to it to help them solve their programming issues, step-by-step. The trainer said that most of the time, they figure out the solution on their own, building confidence among the students and saving the sanity of the teacher.

It works. If a problem-solving duck can help me, a non-techy former English teacher and high school principal who now has a passion for PowerSchool and state reporting platforms, it can work with a class of sweaty middle schoolers.

For sure, computers will try you, along with all the little intricacies that lie therein when the data is misaligned. But computers don’t argue with you. You can program them to do what you want them to do, and if you hunt long enough, you will find where the problem is. Even though there might be times you want to cuss them, kick them, and throw them out the window, if you stop, take a deep breath, and talk to your duck, you just might figure the way out of the problem.

Clearing the errors and warnings is cathartic. Where else can you clean up shop and know that the job is done and will stay done? When the overnight sync happens, and that report comes through during the early morning hours showing fewer issues than you had the day before, you know you’re making progress.

And then the golden moment happens: no errors and no warnings. It’s the same feeling as when you’ve cleaned your house from stem to stern, or mowed and trimmed your front yard, and the camera crew from Good Housekeeping is about to arrive to do a story on your perfect little piece of paradise.

If only life were so simple, for the garbage will pile up, the grass will grow, and the dust will collect. 

We will make mistakes, hurt feelings, think wicked thoughts, and burn bridges.

Try as we might, our slate is never clean. We are plagued with errors and warnings. 

But they can be made as if they never happened.

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

Psalm 103:11-12

We can’t figure it out on our own. There aren’t enough blue rubber ducks in the world to help us reason through to the other side of our own sin. 

So it’s okay to put your hands in the air, students, and admit you need help. Our Teacher has enough one-on-one time for all of us. Let Him reprogram your life. You’ll still catch some errors and warnings, but He will take care of them all. And as your new programmer, He will help you get your data in better shape so you won’t be as inclined to make as many.  

The best part? When your final snapshot is taken, you’ll have a clean slate.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 

2 Corinthians 5:17