YEAR 1 ✔️, YEAR 2 ?:
So Miss Julie left for her pool’s first summer Saturday this morning. She departed with my traditional farewell of, “see ya’ Labor Day” & decompression arrived as I took my seat on the porch. Armed with caffeine & quiet & rain clouds, both the distant past & the past 9 months unwound.

My first year of teaching is now complete. A promise I made to my dad in 1985 & not kept until God & Miss Julie conspired to put me in the schoolhouse where I now reside in July 2023.

I started the year poetic & idealistic, channeling Robin Williams’ brilliance as John Keating in “Dead Poets Society”. His oration of, “…that the powerful play goes on & you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” pushing me. I ended the year more like the raw, gritty Charles Bukowski who said, “I am a series of small victories & large defeats & I am amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here”. There being August 2025 & here being May 2026.

The goal between August & May was to cut it enough to be offered a new contract, say I did it for dad & then walk away. Now, a new contract sits on my desk waiting to be signed as I think back on the year & do I want to do it again, because the human equation occasionally offered calculus results when only basic math was required.

The picture is my favorite, in spite of the 1970s refrigerator gold on the walls, of the 329 photos in my phone’s school album of other people’s children, grandchildren, coworkers & activities that don’t include people or people that I’m willing to share. I invested enough this year that I can identify every team member’s gear & I adored the fact my office doubled as a locker room.

There are other mental pictures,  other investments, other joy in the chaos. Car line & a 4th grade fistbump around 7:50 every morning, another always interesting conversation with a 2nd grade young lady, two separate “what’s up”’s for two separate boys to get the day rolling, a sporadic backpack stuck between the seats, knowing who was in the 3rd, 4th, & 5th cars in line & a mom or two & an infrequent dad, that it was easy to see had a hard morning that was growing harder & they needed their precious cargo out of the car, RIGHT NOW, to reset their day.

I’m sure you can sense my angst over signing. There were athletic events & the accompanying athletes & results not seen for some time that were fresh air for scarred lungs. Random hugs. Random art to tape to the front of my desk. A seat at lunch. End of the year photos. A realization as I on occasion filled their shoes, that the ladies on the front lines in the classroom, library & in the office, also known occasionally as my unpaid therapists, can never be appreciated enough for how hard their jobs are.

There were students that I taught to throw a frisbee & a football during a “free play” day in PE & the dual joy I felt on the last day of PE when I discovered I still had enough arm to overthrow a student 30 yards downrange & then watching the young man I taught to throw, retrieve the ball & spin it perfectly to his classmate that I just overthrew. There were students that found safety & peace in my presence & the feeling was mutual.

There was sanctuary in a gym draped in early morning darkness. A wall in my office to throw a tennis ball against or the floor to dribble a basketball off of to work out the trouble of the day. And a gym & its ancient scoreboard, right outside my office door to remind me that I hoped these people didn’t realize they were paying me to do this.

K4’s counting enthusiastically backwards the days, every day, from Monday’s opening bell to Friday’s PE day. It was 4th grade winning the PE trophy & ice cream party because one of their classmates willed them, encouraged them, & wouldn’t let them let up. And I loved it because the other grades had a student watching & those grades found leaders that didn’t know they had leadership in them. The rising tide lifted all boats & in case parents are wondering, if your child received a PE award, it reflects their newly discovered leadership.

And then there were parents & I’m wondering what I did wrong. Teacher appreciation week brought 51 Milky Way bars, a year’s supply of cashews, gift cards & sweet notes. They supported me in every way imaginable. Last week, in the car line or an end of year program, so many expressions of what I meant to their child or children left me humbled. One dad, whose two are heading to new schools, a transplant from the other side of the ocean who bonded with this Yank because I knew the difference between red ball & white ball cricket & knew what sport the Essendon Bombers played, stopped & chatted because we might never see each other again. And that hit…hard. So did the smiles. So did the laughs. So did the tears. And you should’ve seen the parents. Not one time, not one, did a mom or dad or grandparent call or come see me over my old school approach so I guess that part of me that believes that old school & right school are interchangeable terms needs some work.

In the product of the human equation, this little place gave me more than I gave it. And, if you’ve consumed these 900+ words to get this far, you know it took some too. So you can see the struggle of what my verse might be for Year 2…