Goodbye

       As the school year draws to a close I am left with a sense of emptiness. After the long adventure through student teaching, and everything I have learned, and all the wonderful experiences I have had, it is all going to be gone soon. Every relationship I have built, every friend that I have made, and every student that I have reached in some way, will all be gone. I have one of two options: I could become sad and reminisce on all of the good things that happened over the year in order to hold onto what is about to be leaving me, or I could be happy that what I experienced was just one of many more years to come. I am torn by the fact that I will more than likely start to slowly forget the names and faces of those that have affected my life and those lives I have touched, but also relieved to know that they, too, will slowly start to forget me as well. That makes saying goodbye a little less painful. And then I remember that no matter where life takes me, if I graduate, or if I even last as a teacher, as long as I am happy with the things I have accomplished this year, then that is all that really matters in the end. I know in my heart that I did a great job teaching them and I know for a fact that they will miss me when I am gone, for at least a little while. What I need to do now is be happy that I was able to experience the joys of teaching and the joys of building a community within the classroom, because there isn’t another job on the planet that is quite like this. Sure, I have my shortcomings, as everyone does, because I am a human being just like everyone else. But my strength is in my craft and my actions cannot be summarized by only a few of them. Too often we only focus on the negative aspects of other human beings instead of trying to see the good under the surface. That is one of the most essential skills we can have as future teachers: if we can see the good in every kid, and not what is on the surface that they are putting out for everyone else to see, then we will be able to reach them, and teach them, and learn from them. The world isn’t full of sunshine and rainbows, and that’s okay because without sadness, without the sadness of saying goodbye to this year, this experience, then we wouldn’t know the joy that came from it, that will come from future classrooms, from future students, from future teachers. We are all on this earth together, like it or not, and the classroom is our earth, and we stick together, and eventually part ways with the knowledge left to us from the other. This is why we, as teachers, might just be able to change the world.

Mr. Ames – signing off