Last Day

It’s over. My first, tumultuous year of teaching is now completely over. I have to stop by the school tomorrow to tape a sheet of paper over my last bookshelf before I turn in the key to my classroom, but it’s over.

Yesterday was the last day of school. We had written letters to parents about the plays that we were doing and I was hoping for a good turnout. I got six parents. My roommate says that it was a pretty good turnout (about 25%!) because I probably got all the parents who have access to a car and who weren’t working or high.

The plays went passably well. Five Little Monkeys and Hattie and the Fox went very well and Click Clack Moo went quite poorly. I guess I expected more from those children because they are my best readers.

I had hoped it would be an easy day. The last day of school should be, I think. Kids should want to be good, teachers don’t need to be strict because there will be no repercussions from lax management in the ensuing days. That attitude lasted all of five minutes until I turned my back and R- punched R2- in the stomach so R2- punched R- in the nose and drew blood. They weren’t even mad at each other. It was the first blood ever drawn in my class from violence. No, the second time – once D—scratched K-‘s face because he touched her on her booty.

The whole leaving process has been very anti-climactic, though. On Tuesday, the kids came to school. On Wednesday, they didn’t come anymore. There was no last hurrah. As my kids left for the bus they made their habitual choices (hug, high five, or handshake) as though it was just any old day. They didn’t seem to feel the difference between this and any other school day any more than I did.