The end…

Today was our last day with students, bringing to a close my 8th year of teaching. Sure, there is next week, which will be filled with cleaning, sorting, and planning for fall, but today was the last day with students around. And since they’re the reason I’m here, I count today as the last day. While summer is exciting for me as a teacher, it isn’t always for my students. For 180 days, they have known that the school is open for them if they choose to come. For 180 days, they have known that when they arrive, a teacher will greet them. For 180 days, they have known what to expect – when the bells will ring, where they will be, what they will do.

Then, all of a sudden, on a day in a month so chosen because 90 years ago it lined up best with the agricultural growing year, they know they can’t go to school. They know that the doors will be locked. For two months. For the students who the school represents the only stability in their lives this is devastating. This afternoon, I stopped to talk with a young man in grade 9 who was not in his afternoon class, but was sitting up on a window ledge looking glum. I asked him if he was excited for summer, and he responded immediately that he was. Then, after a few moments, he reconsidered, and admitted he wasn’t. I wished I could do something. I wished I could make his living arrangements more stable, his summer pass quickly and safely. But I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do. So, I told him I was teaching a lot of grade 10 next year, and wanted him in my English and Drama classes, and he smiled a bit. But in the end, I walk away to my summer of leisure and luxury, and he returns to his life of instability. In the USA right now there is a movement in favour of year-round schooling. While the movement heralds the increases in test scores that result, I think there may be some additional, more meaningful effects…