Year after year, new students flood into our classrooms, and our lives center around those students for months.
Then they leave.
I spent the first six years of my teaching career as an eighth-grade teacher. At the end of the year, my students said good-bye and moved on to high school. I was proud of them and thrilled that they were going to high school, but I missed them. I rarely saw any of them after they left my classroom.
Throughout the years, those children, the children portrayed in the photo above, have remained children in my mind. I know they continue to grow after they leave me, but I still see them as the awkward thirteen year olds who sat inside my classroom.
Today I logged into Facebook and sent birthday wishes to a student who sat inside my eighth-grade classroom many years ago during my second year of teaching. In my message, I joked that she must be about 14 now. Sherry responded,
LOL! 45! Can you believe it!!!! Thanks, Ms. Parrott! You are still my favorite!!!
45!
No wonder I am tired!
