Message to my students

Goodbye is hard, especially when it means I won’t be in the building to greet you in the hallways next year. I will remember your hands going up to create vocabulary sentences each day. I will remember the drawings of your names in the Greek alphabet; your faces when I was still in my cast racing across the room in my scooter with the Hello Kitty bag hanging from the handle bars; Nick drawing my alphabet pig in his notebook; 7th period asking to hear an animal noise; Aaron’s chart on feelings toward Creon, the swaying of the chorus during the Odes in Antigone. I will remember the day Jess wrote 16 tankas, Rebecca’s amazing chocolate covered peanut butter balls, throwing the foam apple for reviewing questions in the Mythology Unit.

How can it be that it is the end of the year already? There is a room inside me that holds the memories of every student. If you see me three years from now, I may not have your name on the tip of my tongue, but I’ll know your face. Study your word roots. Read. Express yourself in poetry. Remember that learning can be fun. You can be whatever you want to be. When I was fifteen, I said I wanted to have five children. I had one, but I became a teacher and had hundreds. Come visit me at Good Shepherd! Have an awesome summer. Here is a big hug: (     ) I love you more than I can say.

Visiting

At the end of third period, students visited the 9th grade English class to share some of their poems. They read from a variety of work created throughout our poetry unit. What struck me was how many different types of poems we wrote. It is joyous to see the students confidently sharing their writing. I will miss not having the opportunity to work with the current freshman next year. Many of the students have expressed disappointment about my departure.