classroom blues

I used to think there was nothing sadder than an empty classroom at the end of the year.

It's not something I really dealt with until 10 years ago.  For the first 11 years of my career I worked in multi-track year-round schools.  This meant that on any given day 3/4 of the school were on campus and 1/4 wasn't, allowing for the building itself to serve at 133% capacity.  This meant that rooms never sat empty for more than a few hours, because as one teacher was moving out another was moving in.  

But then I started working at my current school and with it came a traditional school calendar.  And that meant that at the end of the year everyone spends a day or 2 packing up their classroom for the summer.  Even if you're staying in the same room you still have to clear the room in case they want to clean the floors over the summer, you take down that year's dated materials (student work, schedules, etc), and you try to get organized for the start of the next year.  So just a day or two after students are finished for the year a teacher's classroom looks, well, sad.  The walls are bare.  Things are locked away.  And I used to think there was nothing sadder.

Until today.

Today I went to school to pack up my classroom, but it was so very different.  Walking into that room was like stepping back in time.  The last time I was there with my students was March 13, and it showed.  The shamrock lights were still strung up by the white board (don't worry, they're battery operated and I switch the different light strands out seasonally).  On the board were the remnants of the rain dance plan kindergarten and I had made together that day.  Clips were still on the commitment cards, showing the choices students had selected.  

And then I saw the Jobs and Wish Well boards.  Seeing those names assigned to each job, I realized that not only were those 3rd quarter electives stopped abruptly but my 4th quarter electives never even met.  But it was the Wish Well board that did me in.  There in the midst of the names of children who were absent or just having a hard time that day was my name.  Misspelled, of course (Frasier is hard for everyone, but especially children).  And with a heart drawn around it, which means a second class wished me well, too.  It was then that I remembered that at the point in March I was slowly disintegrating into the lowest point yet in my grief journey.  I'd passed the one year mark since Mom's death and was approaching the 11th anniversary of my marriage to John, knowing all along that the 2 year mark since John's death and then my birthday were right around the corner.  I could feel the grief weighing me down and my kids noticed.  That's the amazing thing about kids - they notice and acknowledge my feelings at times when adults just ignore them due to their own discomfort.  And so my kids knew something was wrong and were wishing me well.

And that's when the tears came.

There's nothing sadder than an empty classroom at the end of the school year...

...unless it's a classroom abruptly halted and frozen in time.