The true last day of school....

Thought of the day: The true last day of school....

Today was the official last day of school. The kids aren't here but the all of the teachers have to show up. They did this at the end of last semester as well. I already had my grades done so I took the very last day last semester to clean my room, read a book, and catch up on my comics online. All in all, it was a very slow and relatively unengaging day.

This semester I decided to try something different. I invited my favorite students from this year for a mini-party. Since I was no longer their teacher, I figured that I was allowed to have favorites. That was my logic, anyway.

This had some disasterous results and I intend to never do it again. First of all, my students had the logic of "well, if you're no longer our teacher then it's ok to talk to you as if you were our age." All of the respect that I had garnered throughout the year was lost. That's a cultural difference, I suppose. I know that I still talk to my teachers with the upmost respect just because it's hard for me to think of them as really people and not prepetually *my teachers.*

Second, it was a logistical nightmare to get the kids to agree to what they wanted to each and to order food to the school. I wanted to do Chinese food to have something different for them, but that was horrible. I don't know how many places I must have went through before I gave up. I ended up ordering pizza - and it was fun to have the workers in the office call over the intercom to tell me that my pizza had arrived. That made me chuckle.

At the end of the day, I decided that I like the idea of having a small party with food at the end of the year for my students that really had made an impresson on me but for the sake of safety (and having my students realize that I can't treat them as friends even if school is over) I will do it at the end of the school year but before school is out.

As always, through the ups and downs I still don't regret changing professions. I love my work, though it is difficult, time-consuming, and an ethical quandary.