School's out!

I.

Am.

Back.

Last Friday was my last day at school. The teacher I've been subbing for since Christmas is going to return from maternity leave on Monday. I'm sure she's dreading her return a little bit, having to juggle three kids (one a newborn) and having been gone for so long. I will be thinking about her tomorrow morning, wishing her well as she deals with the piles of stuff I left for her, with the new seating chart I created while she was gone, with the general chaos that being in a high school classroom will bring. I hope she enjoys being back with her students and gets back into the swing of things quickly, and if she doesn't, I hope the last seven weeks go by quickly for her.

Tomorrow, I will be drinking coffee at Amy's house.

"What are you doing after you drop Quinn off at school tomorrow?" she asked me on the phone today.

"Oh, jeez, I have a lot of paperwork stuff I have to get done that I've been putting off for a long time."

"Oh, I'll bet," she commiserated.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, you could come over and visit afterwards if you wanted."

"I really shouldn't," I said, plotting out which coffee establisment is on the way to her house from Quinn's school.

Later on, after--perhaps--an afternoon siesta, I'll be picking Quinn up from school, relaxed and happy and ready to play "pretend you find a kitten" sixty-seven times before bedtime. I might even cook dinner.

For some reason, this last teaching stint really kicked my ass. Maybe because I had honors students this time, who are really, fiercely determined to get good grades and will shake down anyone--adult or child--who stands in his or her way. Maybe because I was rusty at what I was teaching the sophomores and confident in an unfounded way about what I was teaching the freshmen. Maybe because things around here just kept going wrong. I was sick for a long time, Quinn was REALLY sick for a REALLY long time, Andy's uncle died suddenly, and I was just really ready to be done about 2 months before I was. Bad luck and a bad attitude...I might as well have taken to smoking behind the school.

As is usual, I met and adored a bunch of incredibly bright, funny, loving new students and fell in love again with a few standouts from last year. A few tested my patience and made me wonder...well, things that probably shouldn't be wondered publicly.

On my last day, my first period class threw me a surprise party, complete with a scheme to get me out of the classroom to set it up before class began (an "emergency" page to the attendance office), homemade cupcakes and cookies (oh my gosh, tear!), decorations, candy, and an assortment of 2-liter bottles of pop...none of which were Diet Anything (hello, teenagers!). There was also '80s music and a homemade card with a 3-D drawing of me that pops out when you open it, inscribed with messages such as, "Mrs. Lester, I'll always remember making your head implode during class," and "Yo, it was sweet."

I'm getting a little misty. I think I'm forgetting about the fact that this bunch wouldn't be quiet during class time for all the free MySpace accounts in the world.

The other three classes also threw parties, although one could only be called a "party" because they were passing bags of candy around to each other.

The send-off was really touching, especially since I'd struggled so much for the last few months to keep everything balanced at home and at school.

Even though I'm not going in tomorrow, it's hard to feel too removed from everything, seeing as I have the usual huge stack of grading that I should have finished by now but that still needs to get done.

Some things will never change.

Posted by Amy at April 03, 2006 12:29 AM