Ever since I started teaching at the middle school level in 1994, there have been students who I've connected with on a personal level, but I have always had a clear and purposeful separation from kids. There are some that I still talk to or at least touch base with on Facebook every now and then. But this graduating class has had students who have truly made an impact on me like never before.
Several years ago, a friend of mine commented that she felt like she wasn't changing the world as a teacher like she thought she would. I never had that kind of motivation, I was there to do a job and not make an impact on student's lives! That was for the real teachers. I was teaching "shop" to middle schoolers. I just wanted them all to leave my class with all their fingers. I succeeded in that too...mostly...but that wasn't my fault. He took something out of my class and had a "model rocket" experiment go bad and he lost part of his thumb. I ran into him a few months ago, he's doing well :)
It wasn't until I started teaching high school kids that my attitude started to shift. I started dealing with young adults who could hold real conversations and could joke around without getting carried away. I also started working with students for more than just one year at a time. When I first started at Delmar Middle and Senior High School, I taught grades 7 -12, so I really got to know some kids after all those years. As time went on, my classes shifted to a computer lab, I ended up with just high schoolers and I started to get a different type of student. I actually had valedictorians and honor students in my class! I had always heard rumors about these students, but I finally got to work with them! I loved working with the tech ed classes in the shop building stuff like picnic tables, catapults, hovercraft, CO2 cars, robots, and even cardboard boats. But I enjoyed having a calmer subject with focused students! Suddenly, I wasn't breaking up fights, lecturing about playing around with dangerous tools, and making sure nobody was doing anything stupid like drilling holes in my tables. I also started working on the yearbook.
My role in the yearbook class became more of a guiding force than a teacher. We learned a lot together, and I still learn a lot each year. We worked together on it rather than me just teaching lessons and giving assignments. We took ownership of something that would be read by hundreds of people and kept for years to come. I wasn't pushing these students to do a good job to get a good grade,they had the internal motivation to get it right! I spend a lot of time working closely with the yearbook students and I definitely become closer to those kids than those in the other classes just by the nature of the work.
I've missed one or two graduation exercises since I started at Delmar, but there is nothing that would have made me miss this the class of 2012 graduate. For whatever reason, this class had a big impact on me. I had a lot of fun with this group, but I've also had some frustrating and stressful days with them as well. I've sat by their hospital bed after a car accident, I've listened to their deepest secrets and heartbreaking stories, I've cried with them, I've yelled at them, they've yelled at me, and I'm sure I've lost some hair because of them. BUT, there has never been a class that I've been so fond of either. I respect them, I admire them, I've been inspired by them, I love them, and I will miss them dearly.
Good luck to the class of 2012! I look forward to the great things you will do in the future.
