amanisamanisaman

It’s been a busy week, what with the end of the school year and the impending due date of my daughter (which was yesterday: still waiting!).

Today is the first day that I don’t need to go in to school.  Summer hasn’t quite sunken in yet; it always takes me a few days to get into the groove.

I attended graduation last Thursday, and watching those kids stride across the stage every year, staring toward their nebulous futures, I get to thinking about many things.  One is always how much I love my job.  I am privileged enough to be able to work with some of the finest students in the world on a daily basis (except during summer: yet another perk to this profession).  I get to be a part of their lives for a brief moment, and I hope that I am a positive influence.  And, in turn, they are a part of my life for a brief moment.  They move on, and I stay in the same place, waving at them as they head off in a hundred different directions.

And in the fall, I have another one hundred and thirty kids who will spend the next ten months with me.  It is a challenge–that is for sure.  Yet it is also the most rewarding experience.  Not to disparage other subject-area teachers, but being an English teacher is unlike any other job: I am able to get a glimpse into how these people work, what they love, what they hate, what they want from life; I am able to watch them create, using words that come from their heads, worlds on the paper.

I do not measure a year from January to December.  My year is from September to June.  Summer is lovely–my favorite season–but there is a little part of my heart that looks forward to the fall, to the start of a new year with fresh faces and worlds to be created.