Tomorrow is Day 180 - our final day of school. After more than 2,000 hours of working and laughing alongside this group of kids I know it's going to be hard to say goodbye. They've been anticipating this. Yesterday they shared with me a song they wrote for me a few weeks ago while I was away on an overnight study with the 4th and 5th grades. Written to the tune of We Will Rock You, it was titled We Will Miss You. Just as they started to sing it to me Madison brought me a box of tissues.
"Here," she said. "You're going to need these!"
As it turned out I didn't. The song was really fun but to their dismay I was a rock. Today they were excited to reveal my end-of-the-year gift. They gathered around our classroom window to block my view of what awaited me out there. Just before the big moment someone called out, "He's going to cry!" I sure was grateful to find a lovely new bench sitting beside our pond and garden (last year's gifts). There was even a thoughtful plaque for the bench thanking me for all the great learning and music we've experienced together over these two years. Knowing that next year I'm going to have kids climbing in and out of our window each day to enjoy that bench I was both thankful and touched. Yet still no tears.
"Mr. H, I'll give you five bucks if you cry tomorrow!" Madison said. It should be noted here that Madison's favorite books are the ones that make you cry at the end.
"Yeah," Rose said. "You have to cry tomorrow."
"Just wait," I assured them. "You never know."
Statistically speaking I'm pretty much a sure thing when it comes to tearfully saying goodbye when someone moves away or when I have to say goodbye on the last day of school. I remember a couple of years ago, while teaching at a different school, I couldn't bring myself to tear the classroom down. The kids were already gone for the summer yet I couldn't bring myself to stack the desks and chairs in the corner of the room until the very last moment. I didn't want to work in an empty room. I was as excited as anyone to begin my summer but at the same time I sort of hoped everyone would just come back on Monday morning for another week together.
In many ways I'm ready for this summer to begin. We're building a house and are excited to be moving out into "the woods" in a little over a month. The kids all have fun camps and baseball tournaments planned. We'll be driving down to Florida to visit my sister over Father's Day weekend. I have lots of books I plan to read and look forward to playing many, many games with the kids.And I'm really looking forward to staying up "late" and sleeping past six.
But I'm not in too much of a hurry. I don't want tomorrow to go too quickly. We have a few chores left to do. I want us all to get cozy on the floor one last time to fall into our books. And most of all I want to make sure there's plenty of time to sit together in a circle and say goodbye. And at the very end I'll insist they each take a turn coming over to give me a hug.
After all that I'm sure they'll get just what they wanted.
I saw that you wrote an end of the year post and I couldn't read it until I wrote my own. Not that I would copy it, but it might have been a challenge to be sure mine didn't cover some of the same things. As it turns out, it does. We have a lot in common.
ReplyDeleteI remember as a young teacher not being able to wait for summer. I missed the kids and all, but I never felt sad exactly. Oh sure, I hugged them all goodbye, felt nostalgic when I was taking down their work. But summer was here baby! Time to chill out and enjoy life again. I might have agreed with ANONYMOUS who wrote "The Three Best Things About Teaching Are..."
I am not sure when I started to get more attached to the kids, to realize that we are all friends working together to make a successful year rather than simply ME teaching THEM. Perhaps it is knowing that I have far fewer years of teaching ahead of me than behind me - it makes each year more precious somehow. A big part for me was teaching with adults I like spending time with. For many of the years I taught I didn't really make close friendships with the adults in my building or my hall. I was just the weirdo at the end of the hall who played on the recess field with his kids, who sang songs with his class, ate with them at recess instead of sitting at the teacher's table and who put papers up on the wall with spelling errors in them. I was the MAN teaching LITTLE KIDS for God's sake.
Now I tell my kids I love them. And I do. And they know it.
And I teach in a building of teachers I like - including a MAN teaching LITTLE KIDS - right next door.
For the record, knowing the two of you MEN teaching LITTLE KIDS and reading your words make me very happy. Gives me hope for mankind. Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteEach time I thought about this year's last day, I got teary. I don't usually, but I couldn't imagine what Monday morning would be like not getting to see them. For the past few years, I've had some sort of last day distraction that allowed me to pour my energy and possible missage into something other than my kids. This year, not so much. I didn't lose it with everyone there on our last day, but I got close. It ended up being a really wonderful day.
When it's all said and done, I just want to make sure that they understand how much they really do mean to me, for serious...not because they have to...but just because they do.