Break: A marvelous word
break:
verb. to smash, split, or divide into parts violently; reduce to pieces or fragments
noun. a brief rest, as from work [Break definitions from Dictionary.com]
Maker Dad tells of the strategies he and his son used in building a complex 3D printer, a task that spanned over 30 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed his account of persistence and challenge, tackled together with his 12 year old son. Why? Because he celebrates the importance of breaks. Breaks are time for incubation, refreshment, regeneration, reflection. Planned breaks are also times to savor the anticipation of returning to the successful portions. Breaks punctuate and act as expansion joints, flexing with the stresses of the task, while allowing it to fit together.
The marvelous irony/oxymoron of the word break is that it also means to smash, split, and essentially wreck things. Sometimes when we build something, we gain most from that kind of break: the moment when the Legos snap into pieces or the experiment doesn’t work. Making things, even successful lessons or hands-on learning opportunities, requires that we savor the things that do not work, drawing from our failures to rise to better successes.
As we approach (or conclude) spring break, I hope that our breaks will be both opportunities to re-create something new from broken pieces and opportunities to gain a brief rest, reflection, or incubation time for what is to come.
Spend some time looking at the definitions of break. It really is a marvelous word to hold so many contrasts in just five letters. Will your spring break make or break you?
