As They Pursue Their Dreams. . . to the THS Class of 2017

(Credit for the graduation night photo to Jim Wallace, who gave both his permission and his blessing for me to use it. 🙂)

As you may know by now (and as the other members of the Thomson High School ELA department and my co-teachers are tired of hearing), my last active day as a public school teacher is Wednesday, May 24, 2017.  I’m retiring for any number of reasons: high-stakes testing, excessive bureaucracy, and just an all-around educational philosophy that differs from mine.  (My mantra: “You can’t quantify teaching.”)  I have to admit, though, that the timing for leaving THS is actually pretty appropriate because I’m going out with the Class of 2017, and being there without them next year would be awfully strange.  These students have been a huge part of my life at THS. . . and even though the journey with them hasn’t always been a perfect one, life wouldn’t be the same without them if I were staying.

         If I counted the names on the program accurately, 216 students received diplomas at graduation last night.  Of those 216, I’ve either taught, coached in speech/debate/literary events, or both 155 of them. . . and I’ve taught, coached, or both 57 of them for two years. . . and 17 of them and I have spent all three years with as teacher, coach, or both.  Throughout those three years, we’ve all learned some things....

I’ve taught – or tried to teach, as the case may be – them about when to use ser versus estar, how writing an introduction to a paper is like wading into a swimming pool, what five traits define American Romanticism, how to perform a duo interpretation without looking at or touching one another, what Kate Bush’s musical interpretation of Wuthering Heights looks and sounds like, how Frida Kahlo survived (although not painlessly) a bus accident, how songs chosen by your middle-aged English teacher can give you life at the beginning of lit class (those are a student’s words about my choices, not mine), why it really is important to read the exemplar the teacher has posted when you’re doing a literary analysis of a Shakespeare play. . . the list goes on. 

They’ve taught me about why the PC mute button works so much better for “censoring” a video clip while you’re being observed than does the pause button, why it was a bad idea for me to use the word “explain” in a sentence directed toward a student if I didn’t want said student to get Gibbs-slapped in the middle of class, how certain students behave so much better in class when I seat them right in front of my desk. . . some because it gets them away from bad influences and others because they’re perfectly content getting their talking fixes by chatting (or trying to) with me, how it’s just impossible to get mad at some kids even when they’re trying to copy someone else’s paper or eat food out of their book bags right in front of you, that it’s always a good idea to look carefully at the ID around a student’s neck to make sure that it’s his own. . . and that the process of getting the correct IDs back to the correct owners can take quite a lot of leg work and still land the original offender in the media center getting a temporary, how easy it is to get a class of thirteen girls and one boy all in their feelings when you discuss certain topics in AP Lit (well, not so much the one boy), why geography probably should still be a required course in our schools (while on a speech/debate team trip: “Mrs. Robinson is kidnapping us and taking us to Florida,” “That’s why we’re headed north”). . . the list goes on.

They’ve listened – or at least heard – when I’ve come up with a million analogies (or just random stories) about my children.  I’ve listened to them when they’ve talked about their siblings, their cousins, their godchildren. . . and yes, even their own children.  They’ve listened – or at least heard – when I’ve admonished them for their talking, their improper uses of technology, their lack of effort when they ‘ve needed to be trying harder. . . and on the less numerous occasions when I praised them for being quiet and staying on task and for working extremely hard on projects and papers.  Unfortunately, I think I’m much freer with the former sometimes than I am the latter. . . not because I’m highly critical but because I want to focus on the ways in which they need to improve.

And I’ve been listening over the past month or so as the school year came to a close as some of them, in their own ways, said “goodbye” and “thank you.”  Some did it by writing letters to me in other teachers’ classes. . . one came from a relatively quiet girl who I knew liked having me as a teacher but on whom I had no idea I’d made the impact that I had until I read her letter, and another came from one of my three-year students who I quite honestly thought didn’t really like me that much.  Some did it by giving me graduation invitations with their pictures on them (one of my students from last year told me that he was giving them to “all my favorite teachers.”)  Some did it simply by coming by to give me a hug. . . or to sit in my computer desk chair one last time.  Some did it with notes, cards, and simple but sweet gifts. . . such as a Coke with the “Share a Coke with a friend” message on it or a piece of artwork with the inscription “Thank you for being amazing!” on the back.  (For the record, if a teacher has had an impact on your life, tell him or her.  Never believe that it won’t matter, or that they hear it all the time, or that it won’t mean anything coming from you.  It will, and they probably don’t, and it will mean EVERYTHING coming from you.  And adults, it’s too late only when your former teacher is dead.  While he or she is still breathing, say it. . . it NEVER gets old.)

“Thank you for being amazing”. . . it’s a message that I wish I knew how to express myself to individual students.  I did it anonymously a couple of times this year by nominating two of them for our quarterly courage awards. . . one because I’d seen how he’d overcome getting himself into academic trouble early in his high school days and turned it around so completely to be one of my best students both in terms of grades and behavior over the past two years and the other because I’d seen him persevere through countless injuries (so many that I actually referred to him as “a walking MASH unit”) and reasons to quit playing sports without ever giving up.  There are so many things that I have admired about so many of these students: the ones who did their work and stayed on top of things when literally no one else in the class did (even if that meant handing in a homework assignment after the bell rang because he didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was the only one who did it), did not let teen motherhood get in the way of their getting their high school diplomas, took an insane number of AP courses on Georgia Virtual School in order to take on the most rigorous academic loads possible, worked countless hours at multiple jobs outside school but somehow still managed to make it the next day and do what it took to pass no matter how tired they were, read every word of my seeming endless feedback on AP essays and worked hard to become much stronger writers by May than they were in August, reached out for help when everything thing seemed to suggest that they needed to drop out of school and were able to walk across the stage and get that diploma on May 19, took a dramatic interp piece that I handed them MUCH too close to the competition date and worked tirelessly on their own to make it competition-ready on time, overcame the most horrific of life incidents and managed to keep smiling and trying and affirming those around them as they grew into young adults who triumphed over that past, quietly did everything they were asked to do and took care of their business without ever seeming to worry about whether their efforts and they were noticed. . . even if I never told you, I noticed.  I wish I had the time to tell each one of them individually about the good I’ve seen in them and the things they’ve done that have indeed amazed me because I have a feeling most of them don’t know that any more than I knew that the student who I didn’t think even liked me thought of me as one of her favorite teachers.

So, if you’re a member of the THS Class of 2017 and you’ve made it this far (and if anyone knows how much some of you don’t like to read, I do): in absence of an individual letter, this will have to do.  I truly do love each and every one of you – although we both know that there were moments that I didn’t like the things some of you were doing – and I wish you the very best as you pursue life after high school.  I know that I will never see some of you again, a thought that truly does make me sad, but I hope that I’ll be able to hear about what you’re doing and where you’re going in your adult lives.  Make the most of the many gifts that God has given you, and never settle for less than what you deserve either personally or professionally.  Take the lessons that you’ve learned about what to do – and what not to do – and make the positive impact on the world that I know you can make. 

And as I go forth on my new journey, I’ll take a piece of you with me.