Loving Spring at School

I know that some teachers dread this time of year because their students suddenly begin to appear much more like next year's students but I love it. Today I reveled in watching some of my more challenging kids skipping about the quad. And all I could think was how independent and self assured they appeared to be. This is what we work for all year in 6th grade. We take these budding pre-teens who have no idea about where they are or where they are going next and work to build their responsibility and independence so they can move forward into 7th grade. Teaching is so close to parenting you can almost reach out and touch it. We love and nurture and discipline our babies and then suddenly our time is over and we must release them knowing that we have given them our very best. Yes, we worry that they will stumble along the way but we also know that they must do the rest of the journey on their own. So in the next few weeks, I will prepare to send another group of kids off into their unknown futures while I step back and watch them take those first few steps away from me.