Today is the last day of school!When I was in school the last day of the school year was a time of awesome celebration. The bell would ring, papers would go flying everywhere, a stampede would tear out the doors as fast as possible. That final bell was the ringing announcement of the climax of a long year of work.
What a feeling of pure exhiliration! And I actually liked school for the most part.
I thought I would feel the same way as a teacher. That it would be such an exciting moment when the long busy year finally gave way to summer vacation with the tone of a dismissal bell.
But the way our schedules are arranged these days...the year ends with an anti-climatic whimper. Sure, it's still a great day when you can drive off with 12 weeks of vacation ahead of you...but it no longer begins with that great moment of exhaltation. Now the year ends with a long slow sigh.
The last two days are early release days. The students spend those days taking exams. However; if they passed TAKS, were never suspended and are passing your class they can exempt your exam. I only have eight students out of over 100 taking my exams. Now that can be a good thing since I have less tests to grade. Many students skip those last several review days so the last chance I have to say goodbye to my full classes was a week ago.
They have an orderly locker clean out several days before the last day so there is no paper to throw gloriously into the air on the final day. If you don't have an exam you are required to immediately leave campus. So instead of a stampede on that last day...you have a tepid trickle.
Now all those things are good things. I hated being on duty that last day when students peeled out of the parking lot hurling water balloons and spraying silly stream. I also felt sorry for those janitors who had to clean up the knee deep paper trail.
But admittedly a part of me misses that last explosion of joy as school was out for summer.
