I've been back in my old classroom for four weeks and have just one more to go before I roll off this long term sub gig. I'm excited for the direction the class is taking, and the relationship I've built with their new teacher. We have both been in the classroom for the past week and a half, and will both be there through next week. Last week I handed off the lead teacher role to her, and spent much of the last two days of the week seated at a table in the back of the room. She has rearranged the furniture, re-done the bulletin boards, added color back into the room. Her layout doesn't quite match anything I would use for myself, but I understand it. The room feels cleaned up, more colorful, and is easier to be in - to the point that students literally asked, "Has that wall always been blue?" Um, yes. It was painted blue in the summer of 2016, so it's been blue the whole time this has been your fifth grade classroom. That's a good summary of how drab it felt at the beginning of the month in the space.
It's going to be easy to hand the class off to the new teacher. I have felt like we have been on the same page about EVERYTHING. Okay, almost everything; she did change the layout of the room. I know she is going to take care of these kids and their needs. She is going to meet the students where they are and work with them and their families, or in spite of their families, to do what is best for each individual. She will strive to help them achieve more academically than they thought possible, and have a gentle but firm handle on discipline. She will celebrate the positive and endeavor to minimize the time spent on necessary redirections or handing out of consequences.
It's also going to be hard to leave. I like this job. Well, really, I love it, and feel strongly that it was what I was meant to do. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty good at it. I have already built relationships with these kids, and walking away from them will be very, very difficult. I hope their new teacher remembers to have them write me letters. I promise to write them back! There is also the glaring fact that I like to work. I am more balanced when I have something besides my kids and their needs to worry about. It's as true today with the addition of the foster-adopt process as it was when my biological kids were an infant and a toddler. I'm going to miss having a place to go and be needed after my kids are out the door each morning come February 5.
I know I've said it before, but fifth graders are in the sweet spot between loving school and being too cool for school, for having a natural curiosity about everything, and finding one or two passions that make every other subject seem totally boring. It's the mushy middle of a K-8 school - they are not primary students, but neither are they middle schoolers yet. It's the year where critical thinking begins to supplant the concrete-operational, black and white thinking of childhood. It's the place where you can have a student say in an oral report, "Only the lowlands of Pennsylvania have mountains," and no one in the class giggles or even smirks. (This happened last week, I swear it's a direct quote.) The kids in the audience fall into one of two camps; they
are either oblivious or too kind, too aware of how hard it is to get up in front of the class and speak, to react. It's the place where students begin to advocate for themselves, while still striving hard to meet the teacher's expectations. Last week I had a student ask, "Mrs. Conrow, can you read cursive?" and when I said I could, he followed up with, "I mean, like, fifth grade cursive?" Yes, yes, I can. And more than that, I know what you mean with your question so I can gently tell you I have taught third graders to write in cursive, and can read even their cursive. It's the place where a teacher's day can be made by reading in a student's letter to her parents, "Mrs. Conrow is so patient with us!" It's a place where I feel I belong.
