Friday, February 8, 2013

Telling the Children


This week, I have been telling my students that I will be retiring at the end of this month.  It's been an end-of-class, many-of-you-already-know, low-key thing.  Some responses from the youngest have been funny.

  Me to class of first graders: I am going to retire.  Do you know what "retire" means?
  One first grade girl:  Yeah, you've been doing this a long, LONG time and you are SICK of it and are NOT gonna do it any more!

After the substitute, who happened to be a retired teacher, and I finished laughing, I tried to assure them that I am not sick of being a librarian, just ready to do other things.

All week, the short "talk" has gone well.  I have not cried, not even a catch in my voice... until today.  One of the fourth grade classes came in this morning.  Everything was normal until the last minutes of our time together.  I was  telling them the "I'm going to retire..." thing and one of the boys kept working  with the dominoes. He loves making mazes with the dominoes.  When I finished talking, he stepped to the side so I could see the table.  It is the picture above.  P is the first letter of my last name.  I lost it.  I love my students.

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