Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Year Of Peas n' Carrots

Well, it's that time of year again. The end of the school year.

While the end of our academic year doesn't arrive until the end of the week, the past few weeks have caused me a great deal of quiet introspection. While most may celebrate the arrival of a summer vacation, free of students and school-related things, the end of the school year causes this typically chronically sunny-side-up girl, to, well, for lack of better words, become seriously bummed-out.

Every morning, before the students arrive, and I am passing from building to building, I am always drawn to the calm and quiet of the empty playground. There is just something about it that carries so much potential, almost as if it holds a secret that none of us educators will ever know. Sometimes, I like to walk through it on my way to start the day, in an attempt to gather some of the innocence and wonder that the children may have left behind the day before, so that I may see the world from their point of view and use it to help them succeed throughout the course of a new day.

I believe that when you are with children all day long, one of two things can happen. You can either grow to resent children, or you can begin to return to your childhood. For me, it's the latter. Sure, educating these children is my job, but I also feel a kindred spirit in them that I just don't feel with many adults. Call me crazy, but I would much rather carry on a conversation with a child, than associate with an adult. Period. I learn as much (if not more) from them, as they (hopefully) learn from me.

So when the drone of student chatter and laughter falls away this week, when I no longer hear the Pledge of Allegiance echoing through the halls in the morning, when I no longer get to smell freshly-sharpened pencils, and am no longer greeted by the rumbling surge of school buses, I will feel a void. These are many of the small staples of my daily life, and as simple or insignificant as they may seem to most of the world, their absence will feel substantial to mine. It always does. And that is why this time of year is always quite bittersweet.

As educators, we invest so much of ourselves in what we do. It takes so much heart. Given my job responsibilities, in particular, I invest myself in just a small handful of students each year-- sometimes only one or two-- and it makes parting ways with them even more difficult, because I get to know them, inside and out. Every year, I tell myself, "Do your job. Get them from Point A to Point B. But at Point B, you must say good-bye and pass the torch to someone else, trusting that they will handle that journey to Point C with just as much care as you did." It's never that simple, because somewhere along the way to Point B, you realize just how far you've come from the beginning of the school year, and it starts to kill you that you can't just keep going, and see your investment through 'til the end.

This year in particular, I have seen the world through a child's eyes-- more than I ever have-- and I have never felt more like "myself" because of it. It has been a beautiful and life-changing experience, one that, despite my heavy heart, I feel priveleged to have been a part of, and will continue to hold onto for many school years to come. It is ironic how a single, sometimes completely-misunderstood child, could make me understand the world so much better than I ever have, and even with as far as we have come, and given how many battles we have both endured over the last nine months, I can honestly say that he gave me way more than I could ever give him.

To some, that might feel like a failure, but I disagree. Sometimes, the biggest mistake we make as educators is failing to remember that we should come to school every day, ready to learn as well. It is, by far, the best part of my job. So yes, I am sad that this year's learning experience will end in just a few days. I want to keep going. But I know that next year, there will be someone else who needs me, someone else who will teach me to see the world by hanging upside-down, someone else who will make me a better person.

But I'm still going to miss the crap out of him. Thank you, buddy-- so, so much.

Love,
Miss Hill