By this time each semester, I start to get a bit emotional because my time with you is ending. This is one of the hardest elements of being a teacher; I get to see you for 90 minutes a day for 18 weeks, and naturally we build a relationship. Then, as soon as you take the final, you are gone. I know some of you say you will come back to see me, but experience has told me you won't (except for letters of recommendation!). And that is okay. You are supposed to mature, grow, and move on. Anyway, I always spend a couple of days just being sad that we won't have the same day to day interaction again.
The Life Lines project on the Academy of American Poets website says, "that we each carry lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these "Life Lines" like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter." I have found these lines from Lawrence F. Bassett's poem "Vine Girls" particularly heplful at this time: "But Youth renews itself, and each year's freshman class brings its new boys to strut the morning halls, and vine girls too, their arms entwining them." Please know that you will be greatly missed, but I have to remind myself that next semester I will meet 90 new faces that I hope I will grow to love as I have with each of you.
Visit http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/339 and read some of the other Life Lines. Are there any lines of poetry that you summon for "comfort and laughter"?
11 comments:
That makes me really sad to think about! I don't want to move on. I like things the way they are. I like my nice, familiar third period where I can always expect to come in, do an opener, go to lunch, and then come back and learn something. Kyle and I are both sad to leave your class, but I promise you if we get married you and you husband will be invited to our wedding!
I would be honored to attend Anna!
Thats sad!!!!!! Like Anna said, "I like things the way they are."
But I also understand that we have to and we will move on to more great things.
Mrs. McAffry! When you start feeling sad look at the email I forwarded you. It is a nice pick me up when you are feeling down.
This isn't exactly poetry, but whenever I'm feeling down, I think of Steel Magnolias. One of the women say, "What doens't kill us makes us stronger." That line gives me hope when I need it. By the way, if you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It is one of the best cry your eyes out movie I have ever seen.
Oh Beth!! That was so good. I believe that I live out that quote all the time. You believe that nothing can make a situation better and you will always feel like that, but when it finally does come to pass, you understand why that happened and that it was for the better.
Beth,
You are wise beyond your years! We have missed you the last several days.
Mrs. McAffry
Thank you, Mrs. McAffry! This would be the time I get sick, but I'm really trying to come back soon. I will be back by the end of the week, but I missed the Julius Caesar movie!
I got a motto type thing from a book pretty recently that has kind of become my overall view of everything. It is from Cat's Cradle
"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder,
'Why, why, why'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand"
I don't know why this made me think of it, but these are my most comforting words for some reason and I figured I'd share them.
goodness..i'm depressed now..I'm so greatful to have a teacher like you that will be in my memories from now on, in which i will draw stories from. Your kindness has meant the world to me this year. Rylans motto makes me cry..and i dont get it at the same time, but its beautiful and touching all the same. Through all the bad and the good, we grow as people, and I'm glad you helped me grow towards the person I want to become.
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