Mrs. Dahl, Are You Almost Out of Surprises?

 

Tomorrow my Little Darlings will cross the threshold of the Magic Tree House for the last time.  They will cease to be first graders and will morph into second graders, much like the Painted Lady caterpillars sitting on our science table.  The count down has begun.   Our time together is finite.  The end is at hand.

I am not ready.

Do not mistake that statement to mean that I am not wildly excited about summer vacation, for I AM.  Sleeping past 4 a.m. is the stuff of fantasies.  Also, my house looks like an A-bomb found its mark, and that lawn isn’t going to mow itself.

My sorrow has less to do with needing to spend the next 10 weeks with these same children, as it does wishing I had had more time to teach them all I had wanted to.  Where did all the days, weeks, and months go that had stretched out endlessly in front of me, like a ribbon of highway in Wyoming?  I am truly shocked that the end is here.  I had wanted to do thematic units on Lady Bugs and Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  They never got touched. 

There are also those last few math lessons.  Not critical stuff, but it would have been nice to get it all in.  This teaching thing is as much about timing as it is touching the intellectual soul of a child.  Who knew?  I am already planning next year in my head in order to do things differently (and better). 

We have a little game we play in our class.  I tend to be a little random.  Maybe you have noticed that.  Probably once a day, my students and I will be discussing something and my mental light bulb will go off in the quirky way it does.  “I have an idea!” I will gasp with surprise.  “What is it, what is it,” they all clamor to know.  Then a mischievous smile appears on my face, and I say, “You’ll see.  Mrs. Dahl is…” “… full of surprises!!” they finish with a shout.  I have trained them well.  The fun is less in what the surprise is as it is the anticipation of something to look forward to.

During some subject or another about a week and a half ago, The Thinker stopped his work and asked pensively, “Mrs. Dahl, are you almost out of surprises?”  “Never!” came my instant reply.  But I knew what he was getting at.  Did the end of the school year translate to a winding down of my energies and creativity?  Good grief, I hope not.  This quasi-hippie always has a thought or two rolling around inside my head like marbles in a tin can.

But the mood of my Sweeties has been odd at best lately.

This last week of the school year the Little Darlings have been shockingly quiet and subdued.  I wondered at it first thing Monday morning during all the usual morning rituals.  I kept thinking it surely could not last during a lengthy round of vainly trying to finish the science unit (we did it!!), and was sure I had stumbled into an alternate universe when they came in from lunch recess that same day.  What was going on??

The answers began to tumble from cherubic mouths about mid-afternoon.  Turns out something akin to Senioritis had infected my usually rambunctious gang.  If you have had children graduate from high school and leave the nest, then you know what this malady is.  It is that phase between childhood and adult maturity when they begin to grasp that life as they know it is about to end and it makes them… well, WEIRD.  Some of my children during that last year of high school alternated between grumpy and clingy, some withdrew into their own private world, and some went with grumpy all the way, baby!  Needless to say, it can be a trying time for all who inhabit the same living quarters. 

My personal spin on this phenomenon is it is God’s way of preparing parents to say goodbye to their offspring.  It is much like the last week of pregnancy.  You are so miserable and uncomfortable that you’d easily entertain the notion of grabbing the old hubbies hand saw and cutting the darn thing out yourself.  Senioritis has the same effect.  By the time they pull out of the drive headed to the university of their choice you are nearly pushing them out the door and shouting things like, “Don’t worry.  We’ll ship your things later!!”

My first graders have been a little squirrelly too.  Arguments and moods and hyperactivity have been in abundant supply.  But this week they seemed to have come to some sort of emotional climax.

As they sat scattered around the floor of the Magic Tree House, busy putting the finishing touches on their insect books, I overheard quiet conversations from first one side of the room, and then another.  Little faces were earnest and voices tight as they poured out their thoughts to one another in low tones.  Finally, they could contain these feelings no longer.  One sad little face looked up and into mine.  “I don’t want to go to second grade,” he said flatly.  Little echoes from this corner and that chimed in.  “Of course you do!” I assured them.  “Second grade means you are bigger and older and ready for more challenges.”  One honest chap summed it up succinctly, “I hope I get retained.”  Oh, for goodness sakes…

“Second grade will be wonderful!”  I assured them.  Little end-of-first-grade heads were shaking no in resigned woe.  “I want to stay with you, Mrs. Dahl!” said Little Sally Sue sadly.  Now, before you get the idea that all this luvin’ went to my head, I have been around children enough to know that this sudden case of the jitters has less to do with my fine teaching, than it does simply fearing the unknown.  They will love second grade and I will get little more than an occasional greeting from them in the hallway.  This I know.  But I certainly want them to finish this week and this year looking expectantly to the second year of their elementary career.

To that end, we put together Memory Books that have helped chronicle the year and (I hope) have reminded them of the astonishing changes that have occurred since last August.  We wrote about the friends we made and the subjects that became favorites and the books we adore and how our bodies have gotten bigger.  As they filled in the page titled, “How I Have Changed,” I glanced over and caught a couple of the boys trying to determine that very thing by measuring each other with their hands – simultaneously.  It was such a comical sight I had to snap a picture. 

We have also dealt with changes that transcend the mere passage from one grade to the next.  My sweet foster girl is headed to a new home when the school year ends.  She came in frantic yesterday saying that her older sister would not be going with her.  I hugged and tried to reassure, but later asked the sister if that was indeed true.  Her blue eyes welled immediately and she shook her blond head no.  “I was frustrated because I hate to leave so I said I was going to stay.  I’m going too,” she ended with soft resignation in her voice. 

Another student who has only been here since January does not know if his family will stay.  I do not know whom I will see again.  I very much like to know what the future holds and what to expect.  This is difficult for me as well.

And while I am being honest, I’m just going to say it.  I am having a hard time saying goodbye to these, my students.  You don’t have to go back and read too many posts before you pick up on the subtle clues that I am over the moon for these nine kiddie-poohs mine.  They are eager learners.  They are respectful and polite.  They are FUN.  
But they must continue on the path of their own journey, and I must do the same.  I wrote a short letter to them that was published in the school newsletter.  It goes like this:

Dear Students,

I hope I have provided at least a small foundation for a lifetime love of learning.  I hope you have found, not just school, but the joyous journey of discovery to be pleasurable.  I hope you never stop asking questions about the world around you.  I hope that you continue to want to fill your minds and hearts with the wonders of the universe.  I hope you achieve whatever it is you long to do with your lives.  I hope you never settle for mediocre.  I hope you rise to your best potential. 

Each one of you has taken up residence in that forever place in my heart.  I send you off to second grade, Dear Children, with fondness and best wishes!

Love,

Mrs. Dahl

With these thoughts and emotions churning inside my half-century heart and head, I sat waiting for my daughter’s high school spring concert to begin.  Both the choir and band were to perform and my Sweet Rosie had a vocal solo, the program announced.  I sat idly looking about at the audience members and my eyes rested on a Kindergartner in the front row.  Her red hair was slightly tousled and her jack-o-lantern gap-toothed grin was directed at a friend.  A fresh, hot-pink cast did not slow down her energy or buoyant mood.  She was all giggles and sunshine. The thought tiptoed into my head that in a few short weeks she would be my student.

I felt the soft tug of a smile at the edges of my mouth.  New students and new challenges are waiting.  A refreshing summer break and then a new crop of nervous, shy first graders will begin to weave their way into the loom of my soul.

I think I will be ready…