I’ve been listening to, “Let’s say goodbye like we said
hello” on repeat in attempt to frame this final day with my students. The song
says little more than, “let’s say goodbye like we said hello, in a friendly
sort of way.” So, as I listen to the antique tunes, I’ve been trying to channel
the excitement I felt at the beginning of the school. Despite my best efforts,
though, despite really wanting to say goodbye in a friendly sort of way, when
my first period departed from my classroom this morning, I cried like a
blubbering baby.
I really can’t put words (yet) to the impact my two years
and 230 students have had on me. The summer before I started teaching, I felt
like a little girl, not near old enough or mature enough to be responsible for
7 periods of 14 year olds. Within my first two weeks of teaching, I had
students begging to go to the restroom, one girl claiming she had “cramps in
her cunt” from having a c-section, I had kids who couldn’t read or speak in
English, kids who had been raped, kids who knew more about drugs than I ever
will, kids who have seen their parents kidknapped and killed, kids who have
experienced loss, hurt, pain, kids who have been trapped by society’s dreadful
expectations of them. Many days over the past two years, I’ve wondered
How do they do it? How
can they smile? How can they be so trusting of me and the things I’m teaching
them about humanity and the world?
In my final day as a teacher, I’m finding it impossible to
say goodbye like I said hello because unlike when I said hello, I’m no longer
ignorant to the beauty of my students. Rather, I’m privy to their struggles and
their inevitable triumphs, their souls, and their spirits, and that makes
saying goodbye so much harder than it was to say hello as an insecure 22 year
old.
As my students leave my
classroom for the last time, I’m sad that it may be the last time I get to see
their sweet selves, but I take comfort in knowing that the lessons they’ve
taught me, the authorship they’ve taken over my life, the passion they’ve induced
within me will never need a goodbye. My students, by writing their stories on
my soul, will never leave me.
It’s impossible to say goodbye like I said hello, in a
friendly sort of way. It’s impossible to say goodbye at all.
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