6 Weeks
The latest thing weighing on my mind is how to leave school on the last day.
- Do I tell my students I'm not returning? (what do I say, how do I say it?)
- Do I just walk out and send in my resignation letter during the summer?
Leaving is a sensitive issue in my situation. Students feel very abandoned by teachers who left due to trauma. Some understand the departures, others feel anger.
I'm leaving for an amazing opportunity, not because of dysfunction or trauma. Although, there were moments when those things were slowly pushing me out the door to never return.
What it comes down to is leaving this school is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
The facts speak loudly of life outside of my profession: I don't want to live here, because it doesn't foster the lifestyle I want. I feel like there is little to explore anymore in this region. My close friends have/will all left, and I want to meet new people. I need to leave my comfort zone and be anew.
Then there are the facts of my profession: My new opportunities in Baltimore and Philadelphia are amazing and will open the door to other opportunities later in life. My teaching will be revolutionized by leaving. There are no academic opportunities for a respected masters in teaching or even - hopefully - a Ph.D.
To leave without hurting my students is what I want. I want them to understand, at least a few of them because surely some will not. Therefore, enter the dream world of an English teacher worried:
The fifth hour American literature students were all staring at me, wondering why I was so quiet and somber looking. I could feel my face hot and tingly. This was the defining moment I'd been dreading.
The night before I had brought home my class set of As I Lay Dying. We were supposed to read Faulkner the last month of school but for some reason ran out of time. Inside each book, I wrote a long goodbye to each of my students.
I started passing out the books only moments before the bell. As students received them, looking slightly confused as to why I was giving them a novel, Faulkner at that, on the last day of school I started to explain to I wrote each of them a letter inside this book.
The letters explained all the different qualities I adored. I also directly addressed that I wasn't abandoning them and was pursuing my masters out East.
After the novels were all passed out, I looked at the clock to see only ten seconds remaining. I told them to read the letters I wrote to them and challenge themselves to try to read Faulkner over the summer.
I woke up and went to school.
