The DN

1   Anybody lookin'?

2   I took the night off last night, so this comes to you fresh out of the oven.

3   Today is our last teaching day.

4   The rest is silence.

5   Those are Hamlet's last words.

6   When I finally get done with all the nonsense we must annually endure, I write those words on the white board, turn in my keys, and never look back.

7   Thus ends the year of a teacher.

8   It's nuts.

9   I'm thanking the Lord, God, or even Joe the Bear that this hideous year is finally caving in on itself.

10  Next week is a Monday off and then finals.

11  The toughest job is locking things up and having to get signatures from a bazillion people: library people, grades people, technology people, books people, keys people...you get the drift.

12  Seems to take years.

13  Stress?

14  Still tons.

15  Tons more than a lot of people realize.

16   Do teachers work hard?

17   Nope.

18  We work HOURS.

19  Anybody lookin'?

20  We give up most weekends grading and planning. 

21   "Yeah, but you guys get your summers off..."

22    Really dude?

23   I ain't listenin'.

24  Do you spend twelve to fifteen hours every weekend working?

25  Didn't think so.

26  Our summers are earned, dawg.

27  Just sayin'.

28  Anyhow, today is the last day. Finals are just a ritual.

29  Today is the day we review our failures as well as our successes.

30  Is that even a word?

31  It's a day of celebration, and it's a day of sentimentality.

32  How?

33  It just is.

34  My favorite successes are of the students who have difficulties, but who push themselves to get better.

34  They make me smile.

35  They didn't think they could do it.

36  I have a senior who is in my sophomore English class. He is a special ed kid who needed to graduate. He has a team of professionals who have guided him his entire life. When he turned eighteen, he was on his own.

37  The kid didn't adapt, and he stopped doing his work for the first part of the second semester.

38  I pulled him aside and talked with him.

39  Withing days, he started doing all his work, and the work not only came in, but he got better at everything.

40  Yesterday after class he stood by my desk.

41  He didn't say anything.

42   I finally spoke, and told him how much I admired his comeback.

43  He smiled back, and told me he was proud of himself, and thanked me for helping him.

44  We shook hands.

45  

46  Great teaching moment amid billions.

47  That's what we do.

48  Am I looking forward to summer?

49  

50  Yes.

51  I love you all, everything.

52  That's from Wilder's Our Town.

53  See you again. That's it.  I gottago. See you Monday.

54   Peace.

~H~