Long before students hear the processional from Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” at graduation, they have experienced a procession of events, each one of them for the last time.
Friday they rejoiced that the fire drill was “our last fire drill!” They have had their last Advanced Placement tests and their last interim grades. Soon they will take their last high school finals. With the passing of each “last,” the students grin in triumph, but with some awareness that not all of their “lasts” will be so simple.
Within weeks, students will go to their last high school dance and their last “wing night” at the local restaurant. They will have their last study groups, their last cafeteria lunches with friends, their last varsity games, their last stolen moments together between classes or surreptitiously text messaging during class.
These events have none of the triumphant grins or exclamation points associated with fire drills or tests. These are wistful moments when students realize that graduation will both “free” them from high school constraints, and shove them into a world where they will be forced to make more decisions, meet new friends, and take on increased responsibilities. College and work can be scary places for those used to living at home and having teachers remind them when work is due.
Concurrent with theirs, I have been having my own procession of “lasts,” for I am “graduating” with my students. After twenty-three years as a high school teacher and part-time college teacher, I will be teaching English full-time at George Mason University.
I will teach many fewer students and might even have a few days a week when I will not be correcting papers. Plus, I will never have to drive to work in the dark again! (That warrants a big exclamation point.)
So during Friday’s fire drill, I too was thinking, “this is my last!” And even though I still need to be in the school building by 7 a.m., light comes earlier in May and I will never again be stumbling around in the dark wondering whether the shoes I have on are black or navy blue.
But like my students, I am wistfully sad when I think that I will never teach “Hamlet” or “Bel Canto” again, or that I will never prepare another student for the AP test. I will never pace nervously while they take that test, even though I will continue to grade AP tests for the Educational Testing Service.
Fittingly, my last high school students have been my best ever. Of 148 students, not one is sullen in class. I have been waiting all year for the beasts within to emerge, but it hasn’t happened. I will carry with me the memory of students who are smart and funny and seem to enjoy being in Senior Seminar.
And so we graduate together, but not before we have a few more “lasts” together. Some will be jubilant (last report! last grade!) and some will be sad (last class, last hug.) For all of us, it’s time to move on.
