The End? I Think Not

 There is no end to school; there is just a transition from one year to the next.  At least, that’s how I’ve always felt.  No doubt, teachers and students will enter a new realm, one without bells and slamming lockers and children’s voices filling the halls of a building that I saw come into being.  As a child, the final week of school was always exciting.  “No more rules; no more books; no more teachers’ dirty looks.”  Doesn’t every kid feel that way?  I would surmise that most do.  But, what do I, as a teacher, do to make the final week as meaningful as the first week? 

God had a pretty darned good plan for the first week of – well – everything.  He covered all the big stuff.  Then, the Apocalyptic stories outline the noteworthy end of all things as told by various prophetic humans such as Black Elk, medicine man and prophet of the Sioux, Snorri Sturluson, chronicler of the Norse Edda , and John, writer of the Book of Revelation.  According to them, the last days will be chaotic.  All order will be lost as the great battle between good and evil is fought.  It will be a time of unknowns, a scary time for many but a glorious time for others.

To me this is a good way to describe the end of the school year.  For some of our students it means traveling to far-off places, sleeping in, watching untold hours of television, and just being a carefree kid.  For others, it means going to church camp, cheerleading camp, basketball camp, volleyball camp, chess camp, and camping camp, all serving as ways to enrich their lives, hone their skills, and replace the presence of a working parent.  Still others will be left alone to get into mischief of all kinds.  For the unfortunate few, it will mean a summer blanketed by fear as they face the demons of their own homes.  So many kids come to school even when they’re sick or tired or both to escape the horrors of their own houses. Because of a tyrannical father, I was one of those kids.  I didn’t love school really; I just loved the consistency, the order, the safety.  Summer meant dodging bullets on a daily basis.  Summer meant trying to be invisible.  Books and movies were my escape.  I know many like me walk the halls of our schools every day.

So, what does a teacher say to those exiting her classroom in the last week?  How do you touch the hearts of all?  How do you wrap it up?  I don’t.  I’m a “see you later” not a “goodbye” person.  I guess I just don’t believe in endings.  There’s always something better on the other side.  You know, the “light at the end of the tunnel”, the “grass is always greener”, the “tomorrow is another day” kind of thinking with no endings, just beginnings.  Perhaps that is why I chose the theme of “Beginnings” to teach through: beginning to be on our own, beginning to understand self, beginning to understand others, beginning to see the future.  Then, I wrapped these themes in two questions:  What is man?  Who am I?  (I’ve always been a big picture thinker, and that means there is no end, not as long as humans inhabit the planet.) Just as we search for the depth and eternity of a piece of art, whether it’s a painting, a book, a poem, a musical score, or a famous quote, we must seek the depth and eternity of self.  Simply put, I never end.

“The summer months are the biggest test of all,” I tell them.  “All that we’ve discussed about what man is will become clearer as we live our lives outside these walls.”  Some people (even people who are teachers) think that such words are wasted on kids.  I don’t.  We must constantly plant the seeds of wisdom.  I once likened teaching children to sowing wildflower seeds.  You plant, you feed what you can, and you let nature take its course.  When you least expect it, you look out, and there is a field blanketed in blossoms.  As the years go by, the wildflowers die out because the wind has blown their seeds to lands far away.  Then one day across the field you spy one tiny dot of color that decorates the world.  That one seed that failed to germinate so long ago has finally found just the right time and place to take root and grow.  It is often undersized and an imperfect specimen, yet it is the most precious of all.  It somehow has survived all the droughts, the freezes, the mowing and has forced its way to the top, reaching upward toward the sun.

Still, what do I say?  “Have fun?”  “Be careful?”  “Learn something?”   “Be kind to everyone you meet?”  “Read a book?” Accomplish something? “ No, I say, “Each day when you wake up and look in the mirror, ask yourself, ‘Am I the person I would want my own child to become?’ “   You see, that way there is no end even when I retire because it has never been about me.  It has always been about the children, and they are forever.