Another school year bites the dust

My life is--and will continue to be, for the next twenty or so years--measured by seasons. Accountants count their years according to the annual tax season. Healthcare workers record each new cold and flu season. Retailers and markets tally each Christmas season as another one comes and goes.

My year begins in September, of course, as it has since I was not quite four years old. Every year Thanksgiving just serves as a reminder that we have a looooong way to go before we can take an extended breather. I notice the holiday season, of course, but it doesn't have any added significance other than a short break from work and a reunion with family and friends, who I seem to backburner every time a new school year begins and I forget how to manage my busy time after a relatively lackadaisical summer. I barely blink as March Break comes and goes, a pause that is more like a teaser than an actual holiday, since it is spent catching up on marking and lesson planning. May 2-4 weekend reminds us that our lives are once again soon to change, as they do every year, but we soon forget when we return to school and try desperately to get some of our most apathetic students to care half as much about earning a credit before the end of June as we do for them. And finally, just like the year before, the end of another school year bites the dust.

This one will be a particularly difficult one for me. As I have mentioned before, this time of year is always bittersweet. I really need and feel I somewhat deserve the break offered by my summer holidays, but I will miss some of my students terribly. That might sound pathetic or weird to some people; technically, students are considered "clients" or customers by the school board, and our job is to simply deliver curriculum expectations in a safe and equitable classroom environment. But here is where it gets confusing: our job is also to act "in loco parentis," which means to act in place of parents. So we are to act simultaneously like business people--salespeople hocking the product of education--and family members watching over our young as they move through a significant stage of life under our care.

I take this responsibility to heart. Our teachers' union warns us not to come into physical contact with a student. But if one of my students cries, I offer them a hug, as I hope any decent parent would. And I will likely keep in touch with several of them--the ones I feel are people who could use an advocate in life, or just the ones whose company I genuinely enjoy.

I don't want to be BFFs with my students, but I like the idea that a student would graduate and mature to be the type of person that I would like to see or hear from again. There is comfort in knowing that as my years come and go, measured by each passing June, and my students--also my clients and my pseudo-children--move on in life, that a few will have had a close enough connection to keep in touch. Otherwise, what type of businessperson/parent am I?