The Bitter End . . . Or Was It?

It's official. I have now taught my last day of fifth grade at my current school. Yes, I realize this event occurred several days ago. However, I've had very important business to attend to the past few days. I had to play with flying hamsters. (By the way, Rachael, my new high score is 459! I'm totally addicted!) I had to wait at Sam's Club for a hour while watching Cars on a TV I can't afford and sitting on very expensive lawn furniture. I had to get the beat . . . I had to stink at it . . . and hang my head in shame while my mother asked how long my sisters and I had been sitting there playing Rock Band. I've had to dig into the depths of my memory and recall information I learned in an educational psychology class from 5 years ago (yes, Amy, it was our "good 'ol Howie" class!) and attempt to study for my gargantuan test next Saturday. So, as you can see, I've been busy!

The last day of school was a bitter/sweet experience. I suppose that's a good thing. I have really enjoyed my class this year. We have a lot of fun joking around, playing four square, having DDR parties, and experimenting with all sorts of cool science stuff. While they were probably the most talkative group I've seen, I developed a really good relationship with them. (Sometimes this was a bad thing . . . if there was ever a problem at recess, they expected me to sympathize and take care of it . . . even if I wasn't on duty that day!) So, I suspected the last day of school would be kind of hard. For several days prior to this event, I had lots of kids come and bug me again about why I had to leave. The logic that they wouldn't be in my fifth grade class next year still wasn't cutting it as an excuse for them.

I didn't have this problem last year. Most of the time, my class drove me to insanity . . . or rather, they drove me over the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity. This year, however, while there were some days of exasperation, I was never as close to the edge of the cliffs as I was last year. Lucky for me, my students were driving me crazy on Thursday. Annoyance makes separation bearable. (Do you suppose Hallmark will ever create a line of greeting cards with this sentiment? "Leaving? Good . . . You Bug Me!" Or maybe "As you move on to a different part of your life, just imagine me scraping my fingernails across a blackboard . . . it'll make things easier.")

Unfortunately, the annoyance didn't last. The dang kids made me like them again! Because I am the coolest teacher in the world, I created an end of the year video for my class. It had our complete ukulele concert, as well as a slide show of all the pictures I've taken this past year. When I put it in to show them, they started cheering . . . the picture slide show started and they sang along with the songs and had a running commentary about who was in the pictures and when the picture was taken. They even clapped to the rhythm of the music and asked if I would turn up the volume all the way. (Which I didn't, of course. I have classrooms on either side of my room!) All in all, it was a pretty good day. I was glad in the end that I had taken the time to create the video and make copies of it for each of my students. (Did you know that if you close down iDVD between burnings that it takes longer? Just in case you ever need to create 29 copies of the same video!)

Fortunately, the annoyance from earlier in the day was just enough to ease the bitterness of this particular ending. The silence after the mass exodus was heavenly. I sat in my classroom and packed up boxes for a full hour in silence and it was nothing short of blissful. To top if off, I was reminded exactly WHY I am leaving the school once the kids left . . . I am SO ready to be done with people who don't play nice! Sure, I'll miss my students. I'm thinking that happens most years when you have a good rapport with your students. I'll even miss some aspects of my current school. (The Spring ant infestation by my window in my classroom is not one of them!) But, I'm excited and ready for a new beginning at a new school.