There is a moment in Doctor Who in which the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) knows that he has to regenerate and leave the earth he loves behind. He watches the humans he loves joyously live their lives for a few minutes from the sidelines and then, weeping softly, cries “I don’t want to go”. But he knows he cannot stay.
I now understand his heartbreak. Today was my last day of practicum, I’ve packed up my supplies, cleared out my classroom, and said goodbye to my students whom I have grown to love. I know I must leave but…I don’t want to go.
It’s bittersweet, really. I have come to love these students, even the ones who annoy me. I have seen them grow, succeed and realize their potential and, in turn, they have helped me grow, succeed and realize my own potential as a teacher. I think somewhere along the way, in the hustle and bustle of lesson planning, the endlessness of assessment and marking, meetings, and clerical work I got tired, fatigued, and the reason why I am doing this got pushed to the back of my mind. I am becoming a teacher to create and inspire students to become kind, courageous, and wonderful human beings. I am becoming a teacher because this is a calling. I am becoming a teacher to help students reach their potential, to help them recognize it, and to believe in that potential even if the students themselves do not.
I have tried to live out, or teach out, my teaching philosophy that was naively based on Harry Potter. I have striven to run my classroom with kindness without becoming a pushover. I tried to make my lessons fun, bringing in videos, animated shorts, rap music, and foam swords. I tried to make English more than just words on a page. But, as is the nature of teaching teenagers, especially grade elevens, it is hard to tell if your lessons are actually striking a cord with them or falling flat. Many times I was met with, what I thought were glazed eyes and melting brains. But then, after each block performed a mock trial putting the Macbeths on the stand (students were assigned/chose roles-lawyer, witness, defendant etc- and had to come up with their own argument), in which my students were so engaged and bought into the entire lesson, I realized they had indeed been listening. One student, who I’d struggled with, in the beginning, came up to me and said it was the most fun he had had in my class, to which another responded, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in any English class”. It nearly made me cry.
Then today rolls around, my very last day, and it’s a short one. Each class is only 53 minutes long because of parent-teacher conferences. I’d been slowly packing up my things and taking them home. My grades had all been recorded, data submitted, forms signed, and work handed back. And in every class, a student came up to me with a big smile, thanked me for my teaching and handed me a card that,  said the nicest things. Then I’d start crying and would have to leave before anyone saw me.
It is bittersweet because I’ve worked so hard, learned so much, and just want to binge watch Netflix in my PJs yet, at the same time, these kids have wormed their way into my heart and I do not want to leave them in the perfectly wonderful hands of my AMAZING sponsor teacher who has been such a blessing to me.
I know I can’t stay but…I don’t want to go.
-J