This past week I said goodbye to another group of kids who will move on to the Junior High. Leaving behind elementary school, our classroom , and lots of memories. This year’s performance was great. This year was wonderful, and memorable, just as the past years had been. Except this year was different. As my students move on to Junior High, I am moving on, too. I’ve accepted a new position in Houston, Texas and my family and I are packing up and moving south this summer.
Inside my mind, there has always been this place where learning is awesome. A place I feel like I have strived to create in my own classroom. Where creativity oozes out of the pores of the walls. Where kids are encouraged to think big, and dig deep to solve problems. Where we all learn and grow together. Over the years, the vision for this place has become clearer and clearer and I’ve even written about this place before. Then, I found out…. this place is real. It exists. This place is the school I am heading to work at. It’s in a new city, in a new state. Lots of new ahead.
So this year became a year of lasts. Lasts I didn’t see coming. Lasts I have enjoyed every second of. My last group of students in our gifted pull-out program. Our last days together. My last career day at my school. My last time having to empty my insanely full desk drawers which contain extensive amounts of junk mail, marbles, and Sharpies. (Okay, not ALL the lasts are bad.)
It’s hard to say goodbye , but I look forward to all that lies ahead. I feel all of that excitement you feel when you are six and your birthday gifts are on the table. Waiting.
I look forward to continuing to grow and collaborate in education so that we can all continue on this journey to make our schools everything that kids deserve and need. This is really all about learning.
Because life? It’s about learning.
Sometimes learning takes us to new places we never expected. Places we’d only dreamed existed.