practice teaching: day ten

Today is my last day of my first of two sessions practice teaching, a strange concept when one has one's own classroom, and I find, as it is with any immersion experience with students, it is an incredibly bittersweet day.

Every morning, just as the sun is seeping out over the edge of the woods, I drive by my school, and I get that pang, a divot in my chest, of homesickness. My students. My room. My routine. I feel greedy for them, these tender souls whose parents are trusting me with some intense educational milestones in their incredible lives. It's amazing to me to think of how each one changes the classroom in some way; when they are away, you can sense it. And each day I have been away from them makes me feel a little like a zoo animal, all pace-y and ready to plunge back. But I have all of these new ideas! I want to shout. Can't we just say I've done a decent job and let me back in where I can really make a difference?

Of course, that's ridiculous. Two weeks is not nearly enough time. It's altogether too much time.

It's afternoon and in twenty-two minutes I'll head back into the classroom, where I'll perform my last lessons, both math (group division and cubing, for the curious), and I'll try not to get weepy as I say good-bye. Over the last ten school days, the children have asked me if I could please find a job here, if I could just stay eight more days, have applauded at the end of history lessons, have thanked me, have told me, I don't understand why you're in training; you're good enough to be a real teacher (snort), have been relieved when I say it's not my last day, until today, when they groan or frown when I say it is.

This age is sweet. For most of them, there's a willingness to trust, an openness that allows us the chance to give the presentations that will bear fruit.

Last year, our assignment was to observe for two two-week periods and write essays about development and behavior and the like. My body hurt so much after sitting in those wood-slatted observation chairs, keeping mum all day, the callouses on my fingers welling. This time around, the children know me to an extent, and I know them. (So you're famous, one girl said when I told her I had some books published. The way they gaze at the world! No, I said, but thank you for saying so.) Because of this, and here's the bitter, I don't want to leave. I don't want to walk away and not know how they turn out. (Do we ever get to fully know how our students "turn out"?) I want to see them through the cycle.

Tomorrow, I will feel that flush of relief when I walk through my own door, turn on my own lamps, get ready for my own students. But for now, I feel a little welt of sadness, the sort that just makes one a stronger teacher in the end. I carry them all with me, you see.

I bid a fond farewell to these halls of practice teaching and a deep gratitude towards my hosts. I have never felt more welcome in a school than I have here. The generosity of spirit extended to me is phenomenal. Thank you.