While working in the yard today, I got to thinking about the rumor I heard from a neighbor that the rest of the school year was going to be canceled, moved to online learning. I’d thought this myself, but hearing another person say it made it seem like less like one of the silly thoughts that sometimes rumble around my brain and more like a possible outcome.
What a sad realization then when I thought, “It’s a very real possibility that the last time I saw those kids was that Friday, just over a week ago now.” In some ways, this has been my favorite group of students: a fun mix of varied personalities with relatively few high-maintenance (i.e., poorly behaving) students. Sure, there are some talkers, but that’s nothing compared to issues I’ve faced in the past.
And instead of saying goodbye to them, wishing them well, sending them on their way, it just came to an end.
That’s the fear — because deep down, despite the facade I wear at school, I’m a sentimental schmuck and things like this bother me…
When I picked up the kids last Friday, I thought — it will be a long time before I pick up the kids from this school again. If ever. No one was thinking then that schools would close in two days, but it seemed so obvious. For Snowdrop, this is going to be hard beyond words. She has a cluster of friends whom she adores. A teacher who is absolutely exquisite. All her formative routines, everything she understood and believed in suddenly ended. Sparrow is too young to have formed these attachments, but she is not. Next year she is to move on to public school kindergarten. No one will have the heart to tell her that she is not likely to return to her school ever again.
That’s probably true for my eighth graders as well, though to a lesser degree. They’ll stay in contact through social media and such, but it still breaks their hearts as well. The difference: no one has to tell them they’re probably not going back to school — they’ve figured it out themselves.
Good luck with crossing that bridge…