The Home Stretch

Caught up as I've been in the flurry of chores and activities that accumulate and rain down upon the educator as the school year winds to a close, I've neglected to share that flurry with the world. The halls have been feverishly abuzz with students already somewhat infected with the highly contagious "School's out for summer" virus, as so eloquently expounded by Alice Cooper, and contrary to popular myth, the faculty seems to have contracted a stronger strain than the students. My school has recently completed its rooftop deck and many a class have I "taught" there on a day with pleasant weather. The teachers mill about the faculty room, peering through the slats of the window shades into the warm and sunny beyond enticingly beckoning us to abandon responsibility and seize the long awaited arrival of May and June. Instead, we take inventory of textbooks, prepare our classes for final exams and stare into the glowing abyss of our computer screens as we calculate report card grades and write a short novella on the academic progress of each of our students.

Many anecdotes have come and gone without note; the fifth grade boys and girls switched classrooms on April Fools' Day only to find that their teachers had beat them to it... My casually undone hairstyle inspired a trend amongst the fifth through eighth grade girls to the point where I had to give group step by step instructions... In light of the economic crunch, the fifth grade class trip had been canceled and the fifth and sixth grade classes banded together to raise the necessary money... and many others which have escaped my immediate reach for the moment.

The summer quickly approaches and I await its arrival with mixed emotions. I welcome the break from grading papers and excruciatingly early mornings and disciplining. However, the Collective Soul and Idan Reichl guitar jam sessions and teacher practical joke wars and eye-opening earth-shattering discussions with my colleagues and chocolate/comedy clip detox between classes and the moment you witness the light bulb illuminate above a student's head and the "awww" instances in my day are all things that will sorely be missed during July and August. I'll use the time to reorganize my life and unwind the tight tension that has slowly wound its way through me since the first day of school. And you can bet, come September, I will be ready to once again teach classes on the rooftop as we savor the last warm days of the year and i will arrive armed with highly more sophistocated pranks to "share" with my coworkers.