Technically I have one more day -- maybe an hour or two -- before I can officially declare it summer, but I'm jumping the gun anyway: no more classes! As far as I'm concerned, that's summer. The entire school year was a surreal experience. Most individual days seemed very, very long, but by the end, I had a constant feeling of Wait, what? It can't be over yet!
I was very productive over spring break and that really helped the end of the year go more smoothly, plus I was able to use materials I developed at the end of last year, too. But I still had to develop new work for the last chapters of our religion text -- we finished the book this year, a first. I also worked up a bunch of new material for the 7th grade, since we didn't have a field trip this year, that gave us 2 weeks of extra time. Not that we would go on a 2-week field trip, but I usually reviewed for at least a week or so before we left. Here's hoping we get to go next year, but I'm not holding my breath.
Some things were nearly normal: 8th grade graduation, and 7th grade field day. We even had an all-school mass on the last day of school with all grades in attendance. But everyone still had to wear masks right up through the last day of school, although by the end they were "optional" when we were outside. I pretty much gave up wearing mine except when I was working in close contact with the students; since I was vaccinated months ago, there was really no point. I did my lecturing from the back of the class well away from the students, who were all masked and facing away from me anyway.
I'm most looking forward to staying in my own room to teach, all day, next year, and sending the students out for their other subjects and specials. The hardware problems became so routine they only occasionally made me want to scream, but with any luck, that particular requirement will be shelved. We all noticed how the 7th graders seemed stalled in their development -- they didn't have to learn how to be organized or how to get where they needed to be, because this year, the teachers came to them. It's going to be a big adjustment for them next year, but a necessary one.
There were some upsides in spite of the craziness: I have a nearly completely paperless classroom now. In addition to saving me the time and the school the expense of printing out worksheets, I also don't have to collect them, keep them organized, and hand them back. This is a huge time saving! I didn't have a single no-name paper to deal with this year, and I also didn't have a single instance of "I can't read your hand writing, do this again." No one's work was lost, and no one claimed to have handed something in when they hadn't (Google Classroom keeps track of submissions quite well.) Grading was much easier, once I moved everything into the appropriate Google form or document. I'm not brushing off the effort that took, which was substantial, but the time saving was substantial. Most days I arrived at school about 7:15-7:20AM, whereas in past years I often routinely arrived before 7AM because I needed the time to print and staple worksheets for the students.
Another big change came as the result of our dismissal process. We loaded students into their parents' cars individually, since we were limiting people on campus and didn't want people hanging out in the parking lots. At first I was only on the car line twice a week, but that morphed into every day because I preferred being on the car line to waiting under the canopy with the mass of students trying to keep them relatively quiet. It wasn't actually too long a process, but I was still out there long enough every day to get a hysterical tan pattern on my feet from my sandal straps, and to bring out the blonde highlights in my hair. We were always done by 3:30PM and most days, I just went right home. Some days I hung out with my partner teacher dealing with some issue or other, but most days I was home some time around 4PM. Since everything is online, there was no particular reason to hang around, so I didn't.
I kept up my "do something every day" practice and it made such a tremendous difference. I was all caught up with my grading well before the last day of school, and that gave me time to clean out both my closets, all my cabinets, and even my desk! For some reason people keep giving me fancy note pads and I must have at least 10 now, but I finally got rid of some things I was keeping for no good reason. I even pitched the expandable file I've had since my very first year of teaching. It was held together with duct tape and basically on life support, and since I didn't need it even once this year, out it went. I did not mourn the end of that particular era! It's always a good feeling to get organized.
Another innovation: after years of printing out a monthly calendar and planning classes on paper, I finally put it all into a spreadsheet. It's so much easier and I can't misplace it, I keep thinking, why didn't I do this before? Planning next year is going to be so much easier! I'm holding on to the hope that everything will be easier next year. I won't have to develop curriculum every single day. I won't have to move from classroom to classroom, the students will come to me. I will be able to take my classes to the science lab -- or at least, if I decide to do labs in the classroom, I'll only have to set up once, because they'll be in my own classroom! I can re-use the individual kits I made for the 8th graders' magnet lab and the 7th graders' minerals explorations -- those were great! It's so good to recognize all that work and know the effort wasn't wasted.
On the home front, DS1 is settling in to his new job position and really, really appreciates being out of his old job. He is making more money but the best part is the work itself is more challenging, plus he really appreciates not having to deal with irate vendors or truck drivers anymore. DD graduated and we had an extremely informal photo shoot at the Riparian Preserve, repurposing my cap and gown from my master's degree ceremony (now four years ago!):
DH took him car shopping, since the only reason he got leave was so he could get a car to drive to his new assignment:
He took off last Thursday on the cross-country drive, and arrived Saturday outside New Orleans for a last day of family time before reporting in on Sunday. His Louisiana cousins are excited to have him so close by (less than 4 hours' drive), and I'm happy for him, too. Odds are good he'll be able to be with family for Thanksgiving this year!
DH has been working mostly insane hours but in just the past few days it has let up. We have summer plans in place for CT, including Mystic, and the Cape, resigning ourselves to having to drive through brutal summer traffic. We are so excited to be seeing our families again! I have my usual slew of doctor's appointments both before and after we go, but no big projects are planned for this summer beyond a thorough cleaning of closets that have been collecting stuff since the last time I did it. I may even get to read a few books!
