It's been so long since a post here.
But now it's exam time, and I sit watching my students scribble away their last hours of school, and I have a chance to reflect. Because what else are endings for, but that.
I am stunned at the swiftness of time. But as I look back, there is a fullness to it all (and I love that phrase, "the fullness of time") that I didn't expect to find. So much has happened, I bear witness to change and growth all around me.
I don't know--and don't think I do the best job of it--if my students know how much many of them have meant to me this year. They helped me laugh on days when I didn't know what I was doing, they offered depth and insight that often left me stunned and nodding "very good. that's a good point..." but thinking I have never thought of that before.
Frank McCourt, a high school teacher for years, and a writer for less time, said the first day of class he always said, "I'm Mr. McCourt, and this year in Literature, I guarantee that at least one person in this class will learn something this year. And I guarantee you that person will be me."
I resonate with that statement. Did my students acquire any knowledge? I think I grew so much that it seems impossible for any extra learning to occur. That my newness left little else in its path. But I hope that's not true. I pray many of them learned to see poetry, stories, and writing in a new way--that they begin to learn what I also only faintly grasp. It is this: words are powerful, infinite, frustrating, beautiful, limitless and limiting, soothing and hurtful....contradictions, and mostly--necessary.
I hope they see me not just as Teacher, but as a person. One on the journey with them all. One who is blessed by the side-by-side steps on this Path.