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The Last Day of School

Yesterday was the last day of school. It was bittersweet, as it tends to be from year to year. It's hard to believe that the group you've lived with for ten months will no longer be together come September, and at the same time you're ready for summer vacation to start.

The last few days of the school year are often hurried, leaving little time to enjoy each other and say farewell properly. Three other activities yesterday contributed to this hectic pace: our school's annual talent show, SmartBoard installations in various classrooms, and an ice cream party on the playground. In the middle of this craziness, we stopped and I addressed each child individually before everyone went their separate ways. After I finished reading my "the most important thing about..." paragraphs for each child one of my students walked over to his desk and started writing furiously. I assumed he was adding to a comic he had been working on during the week. Then, he came over and handed me the paper. It said, "the important thing about Señora Waingort is that she loves us."

This was a fitting end to an incredibly enriching year. This child's words will stay in my heart forever.

Comments

Allan said…
Hi,

Thanks for sharing that special moment. This reminds me of what Alfie Kohn says at the end of his article on Unconditional Teaching


Imagine that your students are invited to respond to a questionnaire several years after leaving the school. They’re asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree – and how strongly – with statements such as: “Even when I wasn’t proud of how I acted, even when I didn’t do the homework, even when I got low test scores or didn’t seem interested in what was being taught, I knew that [insert your name here] still cared about me.”

How would you like your students to answer that sort of question? How do you think they will answer it?

I also need to thank you for indirectly getting my blog counter going.
18 July 2010 at 13:47
Unknown said…
Hi Allan,
Thanks for your comment. I know that the names of teachers that I could put in the blank are not necessarily the teachers that I feel "liked me" but definitely the ones that cared about me as a learner and did what they could to push me to become better than I was. Those are the teachers I appreciate and probably have at the back of my mind when I work with my own students.
Elisa
19 July 2010 at 08:54
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