Friday, April 10, 2009

No Good at Goodbyes

I'm terrible at saying goodbye. Ask my mom. She always makes fun of me because when I leave it tends to sound something like this, "Kay, bye!... Love you.... See you later, hope you have a good week. ha, bye.... Really leaving now... bye." So... today was hard.

Today was the last day at the junior high (do not think this means the last of the jr. high stories though!). And I knew it would be very hard to say goodbye, because I really, truly love those kids. Essentially, my goal was not to cry, and I didn't... until I was pulling out of the parking lot after school.

I did observations all of this week, but I went in to my classes to say goodbye today. I brought them some candy (which is guaranteed to make them happy), and prepared a little "thanks for a great semester" spiel... They did a much better job.

They made me "postcards" on posterboards with cute little notes. They were all great, but some of my favorites include:
  • "Thank you for being so cool. You are definetely (sic) my favorite teacher. I have never heard a teacher say 'legit,' but you are legit!" (I said "legit" in class once and they thought it was the best thing that ever happened in their educational history)
  • "Hey, thanks for a great term. You made English kinda fun." Kinda. Okay, I'm cool with that.
  • "Come back!!!"

They also made me a very cute certificate because they thought that a diploma wasn't good enough. The story behind it is that the other day one of my very favorite students asked me if I got a certificate for finishing student teaching. I told him that I would get my diploma at the end of the month, but there wasn't really a special certificate for it. He thought that was unthinkable. So... I was presented with the following today:

Congratulations

We the class of Ms. Miley presents this certificate to

Ms. Wardle

This certifies that she has successfully survived the seventh grade with a smile.

I think that might be one of the best things that I've ever been given! So, it's really pretty amazing that I made it to the parking lot.

6 comments:

Tansy said...

Aub that is awesome! I'm so glad you had a good experience and not a nightmare with your teaching!

Andrea said...

aww...how cute and fun and all that. I'm glad for you to be finished. lucky, I still have 29 teaching days left. I miss the 7th grade carefree days...

The Wrights said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Wrights said...

Sounds like you made a mark. Oh the days of 7th grade...Congrats on being done!

Amy said...

Oh, wow! That's so sweet. I still remember my middle school student teachers. No doubt these kids will be talking about their favorite memories of you at their ten year reunion.

Aubrey said...

Thanks guys! I hope they remember me as being a little less of a total dork and more as a super cool teacher. They were pretty gullible, so it's possible : )