The Last Day of School

I drove home on Wednesday for the 189th* and final time this school year, never to return to my school. Grad school calls, and I can't say I'm not looking forward to returning to life from the other side of the teacher's podium. I'd thought for months about what this particular drive would feel like, and was surprised to find myself in a more somber and reflective mood than I'd anticipated. As I drove, I considered that I'd spent the better part of two years trying to impart knowledge to a bunch of 9- and 10-year olds, and had rarely considered what I'd learned from them.

I realized that they are probably a lot sweeter than I typically give them credit for, especially in this blog. So much of their outward hostility and aggression to me is really just a defense mechanism; a hardened approach likely crafted from a childhood's worth of betrayal from other adults. On the first day after standardized testing ended, I brought in the movie "Finding Nemo" to watch with the kids. "I ain't watchin that!" Jermica had sniffed. "That's a kid's movie!" Undeterred, I popped in the DVD, and was startled to see Jermica quietly crying at the film's conclusion, when little Nemo was finally reunited with his father.

I discovered that they are also extremely difficult to impress, and that the humility that this engenders in their teachers is definitely a good thing. They don't care where you've been in the world, or what college you attended, or how fast you ran in your 10k race. Throughout this school year, I'd taken a former student named Daivion to a local driving range about once a week after school, in an effort to serve as a positive role model and hopefully teach him a little about golf in the process. This spring, Daivion was watching as I knocked a ball into the cup from nearly 150 yards away. It was a miraculous shot, one that would probably have had me shouting expletives in celebration and ordering drinks for everyone in the clubhouse, were I not so intent on being a good mentor. I extended an outstretched palm to Daivion, who looked at it incredulously. "Isn't that just what you're supposed to do?" he shrugged, before resuming his practice.

My classroom is empty now. The faded photos of my family's dog I'd kept posted behind my desk, the Hannah Montana valentine I received from N'Dea, and even the old classroom aquarium have all been thrown away. I wrote in my first post that the point of this blog was not to glorify the teaching profession, but find myself writing in my last post that there may be no job which enables you to learn more about yourself than teaching. It's been exhilarating and demanding, frustrating and enlightening. You should try it sometime. 

*Teachers tend to count these kind of things. 

A Graduation Ceremony

By the time June rolls around, teachers at my school sort of look and act like zombies. We stumble around with vacant stares from sunken eyes. We talk to each other about our students in the same distant, haunted way that Vietnam vets might discuss the Tet Offensive. Even our collective sense of fashion and grooming habits have deteriorated noticeably.* This morning, however, we all bore witness to a ceremony that - if only momentarily - shook us from our cranky cynicism and restored proud smiles to our weary faces.

Every spring, our school's community gathers in the auditorium for the "Fifth Grade Moving-On Ceremony." It is an event for which girls appear in beautiful new dresses, with freshly manicured nails and intricately constructed hairstyles. The boys, on the other hand, can reliably be counted on to wander the hallways like stray dogs in the minutes before the ceremony in grotesquely oversized hand-me-down dress shirts, begging the nearest older passerby to tie their necktie for them. I was looking forward to the assembly, if for no reason other than it would allow me a break from what had become a mind-numbingly monotonous daily routine in our classroom.**

The auditorium was bustling with the graduating students' families when I arrived with my class, but all talking ceased when the fifth-graders began walking down the aisles toward the stage to "Pomp and Circumstance." They each looked supremely confident and mature, and I couldn't help but marvel at how long it seemed since so many of them were in my classroom last year. Ayana, one of my former students, led off the event with an astonishing a capella rendition of the National Anthem - no less impressive and unexpected than Napoleon Dynamite's dance - that earned a standing ovation.

After a few students had taken turns reading poems they had written for the occasion, the principal took the stage to call students by name to receive their elementary school diplomas. I rarely cry*** but it definitely got a little dusty in that auditorium as those names were read. It was one of those transcendent scenes of personal elation and professional fulfillment that I suspect not every job affords, and it reminded me of why I got myself into this business in the first place.

*Seriously, I have a beard right now, and you do NOT want to see any photos of it. It looks like I have mange.

**Once standardized testing ends in early June, teachers in my district are encouraged to find creative and ostensibly instructive ways to fill eight school days. All we really do on these days is alternate between watching a movie in class and taking an extended recess. I recently ran out of suitable movies from my personal collection to show the kids, and had to ask the students to bring their own movies to school. This was not a good idea. "Dead or Alive," which Ezekiel unpacked this morning, stands out as the most inappropriate of them all. I managed to track down its cover to share with you, and I suspect that you will be just as shocked as I was to learn that this movie is not, in fact, a porn.

***My sister would dispute this, having seen me cry upon viewing the wedding scenes of both Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky in Full House AND Zack and Kelly in Saved by the Bell, but that's clearly irrelevant. Anyone with a functioning heart would weep buckets at the montages in those episodes. But I digress.