Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Transition


I feel funny.

I have never particularly enjoyed my profession; oh, I enjoy those magic moments of connectivity with students when you know ," They got it!", but with all the negatives that have come with territory of teaching in a public school, the thrill is gone. It doesn't keep me from giving my best effort, but it saps my energy.

Now that I'm into my final 18 weeks of 36 years of doing this, I'm trying to figure out how I "should" feel, rather than letting my feelings flow naturally. It's way too early to let euphoria seep into my perspective. But every day, it seems there are things I'm doing for the final time. Today, I told the kids about the alleged similarities between the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. It's a little 10-minute segment that I've done well over a hundred times, and today at 2:20 PM, I finished the story for the last time. And I knew it.

And for the final time, I saw the wonderment in their eyes as they heard that Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was captured in a theater while Boothe shot Lincoln in a theater and was captured in a warehouse. And that both Presidents died on a Friday before a major holiday. And that both died in a building with the initials "P.H.". Stuff like that.

"Whoa, can you get us the website where you got information"?, they ask.

That's the part I'll miss.

2 comments:

Brooke said...

I remember you telling me that stuff. You'll still be able to tell that to your grandkids. You should write all of that info down and share.

Blake Perkins said...

I can't imagine what it is like to teach at your school. Teaching to me is fun and if I didn't have to coach I would teach all day! I wish there was someway you can come and teach here. Right now my class is in quiet group work writing journal entries about the Crusades from the Christian and Muslim points of view.