Last Day Of School

I am utterly exhausted.

Not only did I finish off the last day with the kids, but afterwards I organized my room to return to the teacher whose place I was taking. I never thought I could do it in one day, but I did.

Someone asked me today after school how I felt about the year. I'm not quite sure. I guess I don't feel that satisfied right now. Maybe I feel like this every year, like things are incomplete or left undone. Maybe it's because the last few days have felt wasted and not too creative, because we've all, kids and teachers alike, just wanted it to end. Maybe it's because my mind is just on the NJ move.

But also, it wasn't really my class. I did good things with the kids. I know that I did. I know that I connected with a few of them on a profound level, strenghtening them in ways they needed to be strengthened, or softening them in ways they needed to be softened. But it was not my classroom. I was substituting since January and using another teacher's curriculum and tools. It was not my room. It was not permanent.

It has been a long time since I've had my own room and my own class.

The first year of teaching is so hard. I think I must have felt incomplete then too. (4 school years ago.) But then I was geared to start up again and improve where I could.

But then the second devastating year came, and the kids swallowed me up with all of their issues, and then the cancer came.

And then I came back in, part time, sharing a room that someone else had started and discovering how bitter I was about my illness and about having had to leave the school in the first place.

And now it's been this year of impermanence, of transition.

It's hard to believe that some teachers stay for a long time in the same job. I imagine them as feeling very successful. Yet I know that good teachers never feel they've really mastered anything. Just blips of pride here and there for a day, a project, or an interaction gone well.

Next year I get my own classroom, all year. I'm so grateful. It will be the beginning of something that isn't just temporary.