Authored by Hannah Williams-Inman
Somehow, we have found ourselves at the end of another academic year, and I’m sure among faculty there are a wide array of adjectives we would use to describe it. As Buck would say, your mileage may vary. This might have felt like the longest year so far, or the shortest. This batch of students may have been generally delightful, or generally like you’ve been wishing for them to move onto the next grade since October. As we continued to learn more about our students, and about the personality of their class, we may have found ourselves increasingly endeared, frustrated, confused, or impressed, and, regardless of those findings, we continued to come to work and do the hard job of bringing up kids to be a productive part of our world. It’s certainly not nothing.
If I’m being honest about where I’m at this May, I will tell you this: the Commons during middle school lunch has devolved into my personal circle of hell, the 7th graders are quickly (slowly?) becoming 8th graders which is very cute, and the 8th graders have universally become done with me (it’s mutual). At the same time, I got misty watching said 8th graders leave my class for the last time, the 7th graders are about to undergo the mysterious-summer-before-8th-grade-magical transformation, and, as I type this, there are a total of two (2) remaining school lunches in the ‘23-’24 academic year. I’m trying to practice gratitude more than attitude, and it’s going okay (but not better than okay – if you’ve talked to me in the last week, you know), so I will say this: May is May-ing, but I’m still really happy to be here.
One thing I have been thinking about these days is that I’ve now experienced 5 different groups of 8th graders, each one so distinct and weird and wonderful, but, nonetheless, I have taught 8th grade Spanish 5 times. I know that’s nothing compared to some teaching careers, but it’s 5 times! That’s already kind of a lot of times. Each group of 8th graders, though, will only be an 8th grader once, and, while they’re in it, 8th grade is their entire world. As an adult that spends each year getting to know and care for pre-teenagers, I’m grateful for the way that their middle school life allows me to be reflective, and consider how much we are all still growing and changing, albeit not quite to the same extent as these adolescents. It would be easy, I think, to have seen this year as “just another year” for me, but the reality that these students only get to live this year one single time, and that I get to be a part of it, has helped bring so much texture to the drivel of adulthood. So, in this last installment of If Only You Knew, I thought it would be sweet to share the things our students are grateful for this May.
They are grateful that you helped their love for learning blossom (this is not paraphrased).
They are grateful that you helped them see things from different perspectives.
They are grateful for the seating charts (because you put them next to, like, 9 friends)
They are grateful for the way you make them feel welcomed and comfortable.
They are grateful because you made them love writing again.
They are grateful for the way you help them.
They are grateful for the way you are reliable, for being there when they need to talk.
They are grateful for your passion for teaching, enthusiasm, and excitement – yes, they notice!
They are grateful for the ways you have extended them grace, and for the ways you have helped them this year.
I wish these humans-in-training had the awareness, the vocabulary, the gumption to tell us why they love and appreciate the adults who dedicate their days to helping them grow, but without a fully formed prefrontal cortex, they quite literally can’t. We will have to settle for a couple of these gratitude notes, scrawled hastily, but honestly, at the end of what has been (for all of us, including them) a long and great year. I hope that this week you can leave work for a little while, and feel like, for whatever year of teaching this may be, that you got to have a 2023-2024 school year that was, by nature, unlike any year you’ve ever had, or will have. I hope that you leave this place knowing that the work that happened this year only happened the way that it did because you were a part of it! And such is the grace of being a part of something greater than ourselves.
For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ready or not, 2024-2025 is around the corner. See you in August!
Author’s Note: Is it possible to already have the Sunday Scaries for next year?????