That crazy bookworm-y lady

My 8th graders are moving on to high school. This is usually cause for much celebration, and it is this year, but I'm also a little more nostalgic this year than normal, as this is the only group I've taught for two years in a row. For better or for worse, I've gotten to know them really well.

Last Friday was our last day of regular classes, so it was the day I decided to do my last-day routine: organize high school writing folders, complete course evaluation, and read them a children's book. Usually I read them a teacher book called Mrs. Spitzer's Garden, about a teacher who tends a garden of flowers, and the whole book is a big extended metaphor. The kids are the flowers--some are hearty, some are delicate, some will grow anywhere you plant them, yadda yadda yadda.

(It's a really good thing my kids are NOT flowers. They'd all be dead in my care. But I digress...)

Since I'd read that one to them last year, I decided to go with the classic Dr. Seuss up lifter Oh, the Places You'll Go! I had them gather all around me on the little rug in my reading corner and I perched on a chair. It's my only chance to feel like a kindergarten teacher; I love it, and they secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) love it, too.

So we read the story, and I had their undivided attention. (I won't say for the FIRST time all year, but sometimes it felt that way.) Then I closed the book and spoke to them about the two most important things I've learned up to this point in my life, two bits of advice I had to figure out on my own and that I really feel they need to know as they move into some of the most difficult and wonderful years they'll have.

1. You WILL get into trouble or uncomfortable situations in high school. It's not a matter of if, but when. And WHEN that happens, you have to listen to the quiet whisper in the back of your head or the sinking feeling in your gut, because if you don't, that's when the REAL trouble starts. And...

2. You are defined by nobody but yourself. Some of you have really tough home lives, or your friends are making bad choices, or you've been through a whole lot in your short time here. None of this defines who you are; only YOU do. In this life, you choose to be a victim of your circumstance. Make no mistake, that's a choice you make every day. (I got a little emotional at this, as I have obviously been CHOOSING to be a victim lately. I was certainly preaching to myself.) But the point is, YOU and ONLY you get to decide how you want your life to be.

During one of my four classes, I come to just about the end of my advice, and a little boy seated halfway across the group from me mumbles something under his breath. By this time, I have not had to correct behavior or ask them to hush; they were rapt. (That's a very cool, very rare thing for this group.) The kids sitting near look at him at smile instead of telling him to be quiet, which they would have done if he were being inappropriate.

I smile at him. "What was that, ----?"

He shakes his head. "Mrs. L, you are going to Heaven."

The whole class twitters, some with nervous laughter. What a thing to say, after all.

I'm speechless for a moment. Choking back tears, I manage to say, "Well... I sure hope so, buddy."

There are times when this dangerous, exhausting, depressing, misunderstood profession of mine pays off in such a big way that I can't express it. There are days that pay back on my investment, ten, twenty fold.

This was one of those days.

Good luck, future class of 2015. You will be missed by many, but especially by that crazy bookworm-y lady who taught language arts in a science room. You will be missed.