Excitement is always part of these last weeks of school. After all, these are people we have watched grow. I personally start teaching them in 8th grade, but our chorus and band teachers have had some of them since 3rd or 4th grade. To watch kids turn from snotty nosed 3rd graders or hormonal middle schoolers in to adults is one of the best things about teaching in a school like this. (Some day I should do a post about writing recommendation letters because it allows the same kind of feelings.) When I taught in public school, I had kids for one year and sometimes never saw them again. I only truly got to keep longer relationships with a few. At GRACE, there are kids that I have taught in 8th grade science, 10th grade chemistry, and 11th or 12th grade if they took physics. Some I have had on my yearbook staff for four years. I hope to watch my 8th grade "knitting" club grow and mature over the years as well. Sending them out to see what God does with them always brings a sense of excitement.
According to dictionary.com, nostalgia is a noun meaning "a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time." Nostalgia seems to be wired into the human brain. Whether it is 13 years of schooling or a week of camp, there is something about revisiting memories that makes us happy and sad at the same time.
Photographs have always been a great way of preserving memories (which is why yearbooks are so important), but the proliferation of cameras on phones have made it even easier to capture lots of moments very quickly. Our staff and students robe up together before the graduation ceremony, and it is always really funny to watch people taking selfies with their teachers. It also shows the relationship that our teachers and students have. The fact that they WANT to have selfies with their teachers is pretty awesome. It is also funny to watch students help their teachers get ready. They make sure our hair is okay and straighten or hoods because no one ever knows the right way to hang those things. We are all fully aware that these are some of our last real moments with each other (even though our students are good about coming back to visit), so we try to make the most of it.
One of the most challenging things about graduation is that there is also some fear. Maybe fear isn't the right word, but it does make us nervous to know that they are going out into a world that is far different from the one they are leaving. We won't be there to protect them from some of their choices or comfort them when they have to suffer the consequences of those choices. Most of them are going into a world that is hostile to the faith we have tried our best to nurture in them. The most important thing we can do is pray for them, so we always have a tradition of circling up for a great last time of prayer with them. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it is what I have. Teachers and students all pray together, and some pray aloud. Teacher pray for students, and students pray for each other. We all express our gratitude to God for the time He has allowed us to spend together for the months and years we have had. This happens just before we line up to march down the aisle. It is just us and them. Their parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends can have them in a minute; but for one last moment, they are ours as we give their futures to God.
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