3

It was my intention to count down the last five days of work, a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 celebration of all the good things that came along with teaching. But who had time to write? I've been busy teaching, creating finals, grading essays and make-up work, to say nothing of cleaning out my classroom. (Where do I put all this memorabilia? I want to keep forever the notes, cards, drawings and goofy things for my desk kids have made for me over the years. I still have the tiny clay giraffe Diego Salas made for me a dozen years ago.)

So the days have gotten away from me. But then this happened today, which really spurred me on to document some of the wonderfulness:

As part of our regular celebration of poets and poetry, my Honors classes and I watched Dead Poets Society whenever we had a spare twenty minutes here and there. It took the entire year to finish it, but we did.

So today, at the end of Period One, when I collected all their finals and told them they had completed all work for the class (except for those who will still turn in re-writes tomorrow or the next day), there elapsed a second or two of silence. Then Steve got out of his seat, stood upon his desk and said, "O captain, my captain." Another second clicked off, then other students slowly got out of their desks and stood upon them, saying the same thing. By the third "O captain, my captain," I was nearly overwhelmed with emotion.

Pretty sure they have no idea how much I love them. They are amazing and wonderful.

And on Saturday, we had the Journalism banquet. Every year, after we've distributed the final newspaper for the school year, we all gather at a restaurant and share a meal and laugh over the highlights (and lowlights) of the past ten months. We had a particularly wonderful staff this year, with some funny, quirky new kids and of course, the seasoned veterans who make the paper great. Often, I feel like I'm herding cats or standing in a circus ring with a whip and a chair, trying to get the wild beasts to get their stories done. I scolded them a lot this year.

And what did they do in return? They gave me gifts.

They gave me two beautiful bouquets of flowers and a box of chocolates and a Starbucks gift card and an adorable stuffed giraffe—and a picture of me with the entire class that they had just taken two days before. It was mounted in a frame and around the matting they had all written personal notes. The only reason I didn't break down crying was that they'd had me laughing all evening. These, too, are amazing and wonderful kids.

One of the chores I had to do today was to return 36 copies of the freshman literature textbook to the library. They've been in my classroom for a decade. Two of my freshman favorites, Rosa and Denny, just happened to stop by my room after school. When I asked Rosa to help, she and Denny took over the job, pushing a cart over from the library, loading it up, then navigating the unwieldy vessel all the way back to the library.

More amazing and wonderful kids.

What will tomorrow bring?

What it's like teaching high school: Part 3

This post is long overdue. I meant to write about this in June, but there was, you know, pneumonia... and C. Diff... and hives... but then Missouri to help me forget all of that (and now it occurs to me I should probably write something about this year's trip to my favorite place in the Universe).

Then today I was prompted by an email in my work inbox from one of my freshmen. (Yes, it's summer break, and no, I'm not currently teaching.) Why was she emailing her last year's English teacher mid-summer? To ask me what "scent" I would like because she's making "a homemade sugar scrub" and wanted to make some for me, too. Yeah, so, these situations always make me chuckle at the folks who remark that it must be "so hard" teaching high school. Why yes, yes it is. I had to sit there and think for several minutes about how this sixty-one-year-old tomboy was going to respond to a fifteen-year-old who clearly has the superior education when it comes to cosmetics.

[Oh time out right here; I have to go wash the chocolate off my fingers. More about that in a sec.]

Anyway, what I intended to write back in June was just this: I often get thank you gifts at the end of the school year, tokens of appreciation from moms who are grateful I never snapped and killed their rowdy boys or sassy girls. Usually it's something like a Starbucks gift card (thank you!) or a bar of dark chocolate (because I beat it into my students' heads all year long that I love dark chocolate). I did get some nice dark chocolate truffles this year from one of my Honors freshmen (thus the need to go wash my hands because of course thinking about them made me have to eat one). What made the gift lovely, though, was the note the student attached:

Ms. Murphy, I bought these because I love you, not for bribery. ["not for bribery" was very carefully lined through but still readable--the gift was delivered before final exam grades were posted.] Anyways you're a great teacher who made my freshman year enjoyable. Have an awesome summer. I'll miss your sarcasm. Love, Thu N. [heart icon]

Please note the correct use of "you're" in this brief missive. Also the correct placement of commas after "Murphy" and "you." It makes my heart burst with pride. (When I asked my Honors classes at the end of the year what most stood out to them as something they had learned in my class, several immediately and enthusiastically responded, "Learning where the commas go!") In all seriousness, Thu was an absolute joy to have in class, and not because she's a hard working Honors kid (though she is that). She came in smiling every day, and her delighted laughter when someone said or did something goofy was infectious.

Erica, on the newspaper staff, gave me a thank you note as well. In it, she says, "Thank you for "another great year of Journalism." She'll be the editor-in-chief next year, with all the stress and responsibility that will come along with the title, so maybe she won't thank me next June. But she'll be damn great as EIC.

In all, I received five personal notes at the end of the year, and that is the point of this post. Teenagers aren't always sitting around with their heads bent over their phones, their thumbs flying as they send text after text. It is not all that unusual for them to exhibit behavior that is both gracious and humbling. Sometimes they actually sit down with a jelly pen and a piece of paper (or a sticky note) and express their heartfelt appreciation for someone whom they feel has helped them a little along the way.

These artifacts will be treasured, of course, in my folder kept solely to hold such mementos. I suspect I will look at them often in my retirement and smile again at the wonder of great kids.

What it's like teaching high school Part I

This will be—What do they call them?—an "occasional series" recording some of the not-so-mundane aspects of my day job. When I established the blog, I did not do so with any intention of ever talking shop, but I realize now that with just a year and ten weeks (but who's counting?) left in my teaching career, I should document some of the good stuff.

The other day at lunch I was chatting with a couple of my seniors about the issues they need to address in order to change the world as soon as they've earned their college degrees. We do this often. Ricky, a young man of strong faith who has a very acute sense of morality, was explaining his idea for an internet search engine that would distinguish between moral and immoral search results. Our conversation was interrupted when Mirella, one of my freshmen, brought me a doughnut. This was a unique and happy occasion. I don't think Mirella has ever ventured into my classroom during lunch before, and I rarely eat doughnuts.

"I brought this for you," she said, "because you didn't get one of Myles' cupcakes. Remember?" Wow. How did she remember? The incident with Myles had occurred way back in early October, just a few weeks into the new school year. In class one day, Myles had mentioned something about being disappointed in not getting cupcakes for his birthday. (High school is quite a transition from elementary school and junior high. My freshmen are always devastated when they find out we take final exams on the last day of school—no party.) Myles sits in the front. At that time, Mirella occupied the last seat in his row. Hearing the note of sadness in his voice, she leaned way out in her seat and called up to the front, "I'll bring you cupcakes tomorrow, bro." She didn't know his name. They'd never had a conversation. She simply offered. He smiled, said "OK!" but none of us were really expecting her to bring cupcakes.

The next morning before school, my door opened and Mirella walked in holding a package of four gorgeous cupcakes.

"These are for—what's his name? Myles? I won't be at school today." Dang, right? A young woman of her word with a great follow-through ethic. I couldn't wait for 5th period.

When Myles came in I showed him the cupcakes—all four just for him—and his face lit up. Of course, I had to tease him and say I might swipe one.

"Oh, go ahead, Ms. Murphy," he said with sincere grace. "I'm sure I'm not going to eat all four of them!"

I thanked him profusely but declined, explaining that the cupcakes no doubt contained ingredients that a sixty-year-old woman with high cholesterol should not be ingesting.  "For example," I said, "these probably have... " and I held the package aloft carefully so I could read the ingredients listed on the bottom.

That's when I saw the warning label: "This product manufactured on equipment that processes products containing peanuts." My heart sank. Just that day I'd received a medical alert about Myles from the office. He has a peanut allergy. The cupcakes would not be safe for him.

"Myles," I said slowly, "I'm going to save your life here. You can't have these cupcakes." I explained why, but he wasn't upset (though a little disappointed; they did look tantalizing). "That's OK," he said, "it's the thought that counts. It just makes me happy that Mirella did such a nice thing." He handed the cupcakes off to some friends who eagerly offered to eat them for him.

Mirella heard about it the next day when she returned to school. And here she was, six months later, bakery bag in hand. "You didn't get a cupcake," she said, "so I brought you a doughnut." I opened the bag, extracted a beautifully crafted chocolate doughnut with sprinkles, turned a deaf ear to the screaming sirens of the diet police in my head, and took a bite. It was heaven. Mirella waved a hand over her shoulder as she went out the door.

I continued my conversation with the seniors, chewing slowly, savoring every bite (and silently recalculating what I would eat for dinner). The bell rang, the kids picked up their mess, and as she was about to leave, Katelynn pulled a cookie from her lunch bag and plunked it down in front of me.

"Peanut butter," she said, "with Nutella in the center. I made them last night. See ya later, Murphy."

If you think for one minute I saved that homemade peanut butter cookie with—bonus points!!!—Nutella inside for later, you don't know me well enough to know my weakness for cookies.

And if you think that all the teenagers of this generation are self-absorbed, amoral zombies who are devoid of human emotion, you should come on down at lunchtime and meet my kid crew. They're pretty special.