School days nearly over

You've been wondering when school lets out, haven't you? Here in NC, in my school district, yesterday was the students' last day... they came for half the day.

Tomorrow will be my last teacher workday. Am I excited? Oh, yeah!

Bittersweet, though, as Fitzzer noted in an email to me today. Happy for some time off, some time to recharge the old teacher's batteries, but sad because I'm not returning to the same school in the fall. I am going to miss the teachers with whom I have worked so closely with these past seven years.

Seven years of planning, worrying, laughing, crying, managing classrooms, attending workshops, and generally attempting to solve problems that arise each year within the classroom, within the grade level, within the school. Oh, yes, and teaching. That's life, after all. Always the school vision to keep in mind, and teachers to collaborate with, personalities that meld and others that clash. But always the understanding that we will work together for the students, to carry out that vision.

I know I will make new friends in the new school. I have no doubt about that.

Today the teachers presented me with a wide-matted photo of me with four of my fourth grade students, taken last week. Caroline, another teacher, had popped into my afternoon writing class, the same day we had had the writing test. I was reading out loud a book to the kids at the time, to take a break from the writing since they had already taken the test. It was a fun book, How To Talk To Your Dog, can't remember the author at the moment.

She walked in with a digital camera, told me she was going to take a picture, and of course we all said okay. The kids leaned in just a little closer than they had been sitting a moment before, and Caroline snapped the photo. Took two in fact.

Today, I remembered that day, and thought I should talk to her and try to get the digital copy onto my computer. I knew it had to be a great photo. All of us had smiled, and the kids are so photogenic.

But I never had time to talk to her about it, and forgot about it.

About 3:00, just moments after we completed an IEP meeting, in walks a teacher with a big smile on her face, and she holds out to me the framed picture I just describe at the start of this entry. There had been a meeting to recognize those teachers who would be leaving. I could not attend due to the IEP meeting that had already been scheduled long before the recognition meeting. Teachers had signed the mat around the photo with well wishes and best of lucks and other nice thoughts to keep me from forgetting them. I would never forget them!

But the photo...! I wish I could put it here for you to see. I cannot without violating the privacy of the students. Just know that I treasure the photo, and it brought tears to my eyes. Such a wonderful parting gift.

When you spend so much time with a kid, you cannot look at their picture and not miss them when you have moved on and away from them. I miss them already. I hear their voices saying my name.

I know in the fall, I won't be there to greet them and see in their happy eyes how glad they are to see me. Oh, that does a teacher's heart so much good!! I know the children feel the same way when they look into my eyes and see that I am happy that they are walking toward me, and into my life.

I take solace in knowing that there are kids at the other school who will probably need me even more than the ones I am leaving behind. I can't wait to meet them.

Even so, I am sad. I know I will get over it, but for now that's where I am, and that's where I will let my heart stay for a little while.