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Lesson Plans


Really the end! Long post...sorry

From: MarshArt
Date: Fri Jun 02 2000 - 00:38:57 PDT

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    Hey guys, I need help with this. Maybe some one out there has gone through
    this and can give me an idea how to work this through. As some of you might
    remember, my privately-funded school is closing. June 12 is the last teacher
    day. Because it is a small school, our faculty and kids were really close.
    You can do that when you don't have such large classes.

    I thought I was doing OK with it because I got another job. But, I have been
    just feeling blah! Most of the faculty feel we just want to get the year
    over with. We feel angry at the situation and have really not addressed the
    feeling of loss. We had graduation last night. I thought was just something
    I wanted to get over with,and went grudgingly. It turned out to be very
    emotional for me. My Principal who is hard as steel, nearly lost it at the
    closing. That started it . I felt so grieved at not seeing these kids and
    staff again. I know they did too. There will not even be a school for the
    kids to come back to visit. No yearbook to look at and remember.

    For 2 days, a kid who gave me grief for 3 years, kept wandering into my room
    like he was traveling through a train station. He'd walk in and out.
    Yesterday, he rummaged through my stuff at my desk, saying he wanted
    something to remember me by. He walked out with handfuls of my junk ( I knew
    he's bring them back). I asked him what gives? He said " I want something to
    remember you. I love you. I love you like a Mom". I thought he was kidding.
    Most of the 3 years I had this kid, I wanted to knock his head off. Another
    ADHD kid who leaves me weary at the end of every class, told me I was his
    best teacher. Yet, i had given that kid more suspensions than I can count on
    one hand.

    Some of them came to me and told me I was their best teacher, or their
    favorite, or they told me I was an awesome art teacher. I guess what I am
    saying is that we never quite know when we are reaching some of them. We
    keep appropriate distance from our students, because of the times and the
    fact we need to guard our actions due to it taken the wrong way. I never
    realized I was reaching the kids so profoundly. I am writing this while I cry
    my eyes out at 3am.

    I hate goodbyes. I'm usually not a "cryer", as I learned how to be more
    controlled when I was a Hospice Nurse. Tonight,I realized, (because I used
    to help people with closure and grieving), that I am in a grieving process
    over the loss of the school and kids. One clue is the anger I feel about the
    school closing and that our paychecks are late again. Anger is the second
    stage of grief.
    We are a close faculty. Before school every morning, the staff is in the
    office having coffee together. I will miss their friendships. As much as we
    say that we will see each other again , I know it doesn't happen. We all go
    on. That is sad, too. Gosh, I hate good-byes. How am I going to get through
    this last week? How do I deal with it?
    And what about the kids who have gone to this school "forever". (We are Pre 3
    through 8). How do they deal with it?

    How do you say goodbye so it doesn't hurt so much?

    Marsha 

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