A Year Complete

Something I like most about working as a teacher is the cyclic nature of the year; There is a clear beginning, there are seasonal holidays & celebrations (you remember your March break holidays with family, or spending Christmas/Thanksgiving stuffing as much tasty food in your gullet as could fit), culminating in a definitive closure of the school year, with students & teachers alike racing for the door like the building was ablaze.

With the aforementioned sense of closure comes the realisation that the regular routines, special groups, and significant accomplishments of the year have come to an end. The school year is complete, the hallways are empty and quiet. The piles of homework and field trip forms have disappeared. The raucous, sticky, relentless torrent of children has dispersed elsewhere, now to be supervised by some other unfortunate authority figure. After all books, binders and supplies are packed away, what remains is exactly what you began with at the very beginning of the year, a bare classroom. It's a symbol of the cycle coming full circle, and in August the cycle will begin again with fresh faces and a decorated classroom.  

I'd like to thing that beginning-of-the-year me wouldn't recognise end-of-the-year me, at not without intensive study. Being a forgetful, unobservant klutz at the beginning of the year has somehow morphed into a functioning grown-up, although this won't keep me entirely out of trouble in the future. The ability to be comfortable and competent at a challenging job brings me monumental satisfaction, especially when it's the type of work I want to be in for the long haul. Most of that progress is thanks to my coworkers, who have been patient and kept me on track when seemingly simple things present themselves as an enormous task.

I like this. I like this a lot. 

I've also learned that the group of children that you're responsible for can take on a life of their own. They pick up on your isms, follow you wherever, and give your immune system a run for its money (that combined with living in China-not-China, I feel like I'm coming home with antibodies of steel). After almost a full year with these turkeys, I've grown pretty fond of them. They pick up on almost every one of your sayings and eccentricities, some that you didn't even know you had. It turns out being the adult in the room rubs off on them in more ways then one. More than just the content of grade 4, you observe their improvement as people. Some open up and make new friends when they started the year with none, others work their butts off to improve their English skills from almost-none to I-could-literally-write-you-a-book-right-now. It makes you feel a little proud, much more for them than yourself. That may sound mushy/soft, BUT THE FEELS GET POTENT WHEN KIDS GROW UP, OKAY?!

 I hope that I've taught them just a few things this year. I can't be sure if they'll always remember how to convert decimals to fractions, or what the 5 layers of soil are, but I think their new Dutch Blitz-ing abilities might just come in handy one day. Either way, I feel pretty lucky to have had such a good group.

And so the summer adventures begin (well, due to the amount of time it took me to write/edit/publish this, they have already begun) until August 18^th. If I haven't seen you yet, and you live in the promised land of maple syrup and echoing 'sorry's, then drop me a line and we can enjoy the wonderful things that the summer has to offer.