A final word on the school year

As I sit here on my inflatable bed, basking in the "freedom of summer" (having just finished two straight days of back-to-back professional development and looking forward to my 8 hour grad class this Saturday...), the awareness of what I've been through this year hangs around me in a surreal haze. It seems like just yesterday I was waking up to a 5:30am alarm and working 20 hour days in the blazing Phoenix sun, clueless as to what I was getting myself into here. Now I'm throwing around terms like "cross content collaboration, differentiation, scaffolding, IEPs, BIPs, SIOP, UbD, essential questions, CBMs, balanced literacy, summative and formative assessments, SST, RTI, and vertical planning" like a pro. Educational discourse is perhaps second only to medical discourse in quantity of acronyms and technical vernacular. Well, maybe that's a lie. But I certainly remember originally feeling like one of the interns on Grey's Anatomy (a new obsession) when they began at the hospital, nonsensical terms whizzing past my head as I nodded stupidly, hoping against hope my ignorance would not reveal itself before I could lock myself in my classroom and perform a quick google search that translated the educational jargon into something I could work with. Either that, or drop into the fetal position and rock for a while. One or the other.

While I certainly cannot boast more than a "nearing proficiency" on any of the New Mexico teaching standards (for a few, I'd be surprised if I made any progress at all), I am beginning to feel a warm fuzzy feeling deep down (probably hanging out with whatever mutant parasite is still kicking it in my intestines) that I'm starting to finally understand what my role as a teacher is. Not that I've come anywhere near performing that role the way it ought to be performed, but I have the knowledge of what I SHOULD be doing. And while it may not seem like it, that itself is a huge step forward. No more will I speed aimlessly through the school days like a half-blind, slightly maimed ostrich with a hand granade taped to it's butt. (I really can't justify that simile...it's been a long year.) But now, I have a clear sense of direction and purpose, and come equipped with a year's worth of trial and error experiences and strategies at my disposal.

It's hard to describe the feeling of the last day of school. Never mind the fact that you have been counting down the days since February and have had many a dream involving certain students being forced to experience every second of inner turmoil, loathing, and unadulterated anger they've put you through before being owned by a smoke monster. The feeling you get as you watch them walk out the door of your classroom at the final bell with hot cheetos dropping from their pockets and incomplete sentences committing heinous crimes against grammar graffitied all over the whiteboards wishing you a good summer, is one that seems to erase every negative thing that's happened all year. Suddenly those are no longer the obnoxious banes of my existence, but they're my babies...the ones I've devoted an entire year of my life to helping, and now they have just walked out of my life without a glance backward. Sure, I will see them now and then in the cesspools of awkward preteen love that are our hallways next year, but I will not have that influence over them any longer. I've done what I can in the time I was given, and that's it. Now I finally understand why some of my teachers cried at the end of the year. Not me though. I just plopped down in my chair and starred senselessly out over the tops of the now empty desks wondering what to do with myself. 270 days of non-stop work and stress and frustration and joy and anxious bustling around, and now...what?

You would think after a year of 16 hour work days and no social life outside of my job that I'd be ready for a vacation from anything teacher-related. And regarding the actual act of teaching, you'd be right. But I've found my niche, my passion, within this profession, and I can't wait to spend all summer using what I know to plan out a kick-butt long term plan and some stellar units, observing veteran teachers in my spare time to get new ideas, and pouring over the books on teaching that'd I've already ordered and shipped back home. For once, I will have a summer job I actually WANT to do, and for that I am so grateful.

Thank you again to all of you who have supported me (both materialistically and emotionally), prayed for me, visited me, or simply allowed me to whine and vent in your ear all year long. I seriously could not have done this without the strong network of support I have behind me at home. And finally this week I will be coming back to actually get to spend some quality time with you all, another huge benefit and blessing of this career. See you soon!