Matching Tracksuits

Monday after break is always a bit of a mystery. No one really knows how the kids react; for that matter, nobody really knows all the adults are going to act. Some of the kids are reluctant to go back to school. and it shows in the apathy some of the adults are more reluctant to go back and it shows in their snarkiness having spring break. This relatively late in the year is also tricky. We’re into our final quarter, but with benchmark testing, in the beer, testing, access testing, probably some math testing for some students field trips, field days, half days, and like we really only have about seven weeks or so of school after having a week off it’s difficult to get motivated for seven more weeks. It feels like an afterthought

For me, with this being my last year at Hughes, it hits a little differently. Some of the kids were routing; some of the kids were focused; most of the kids were somewhere in between. The day slipped by relatively uneventfully and I returned home a quarter as of course 45 days long. I closed my car door and said aloud, “44.” 44 more days in Greenville County schools 44 more days these kids. 44 more days to wrap up 17 years. So both a little sad about it and quite excited at the same time.

It was, of course, the first of many last, and I’m glad that I am aware at this point that this is the last time I’ll be doing some of these things. The honors kids are finishing up little roaming and Juliet papers for all. I know that may be the last time that I run through the particular assignment with a group of students. After next year, I will have the option of going back to English, but if things go as well as I’m hoping, I don’t know that I’ll want to. In English 8, we will soon be starting The Diary of Anne Frank, and that would be the last time we run that unit. We read the play, and we act out most of the first act in class. While I’m not sure how much they learned about English and how they learned a lot about the holocaust a lot about the horrors of living under Nazi occupation, and since they are the same age, they learn a bit about themselves as well. It’s always been one of my favorite units to teach.

So today was a bit of a mixed bag. It was fun and exciting: it was so exhausting.

This final quarter is also another last for our family, and this is much more significant: this is the last quarter Lena will be living with us during the school year. That ending has come all too soon. It’s a parental cliche to wonder where the time went, but when you’re living at it it’s not a cliche anymore.