Advice from the End of the Year

I looked back at a post I titled “End of the Year”: it had 45 words and no complete sentences — only fragments with some misspelled thoughts.

The one sentence I can find from that draft is: “ ‘I think you thought the same thing last year,’ says my boyfriend.” So apparently I had something to say [about it feeling like an incomplete ending? not wrapping up how I wanted?] and my boyfriend was better able to make connections than I was.

Teacher brain in June is melted to oblivion. I was tired. I grappled with grading and two different angry parents after grades were technically due. I realized that I was leaving 8th grade and all of my wonderful colleagues for 7th grade on the other side of the building (which is further than it might sound). I realized I was sad. I wasn’t sure how to process that other than finish the grading and comments and sleep — and coordinate with the person I am switching with so that we could switch our stuff between our two rooms.

But then I came back in the middle of August to get my head around the new school year. I started arranging the room, and found the advice that my students wrote on the last day of class. They were aghast that I would move to 7th grade (“But they’re so annoying!” they exclaimed, in the wisdom of students one year older). They still wrote advice to my future students, and it was great to go back in August to think of them and take more time to read what they retained as being most important for students in my class. Some reveal my pet peeves, some are genuinely important lessons for all students, and some is authentic middle school wisdom:

If this year’s students take at least some of this advice, they should be good!

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