Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do. It has been almost a month since I've updated everyone, and now I've reached the end of student teaching!
As my title says, leaving is very bittersweet. I couldn't be more excited to be graduating on May 1st, but Tuesday (my last day in the school) is going to be very hard. I don't want to leave my students, and trust me, they don't want me to leave either. That's all I ever hear from them anymore! "Don't leave Miss Trundle! Do you have to?" It breaks my heart.
I feel that my students and I have grown a lot together over the past few months. I have definitely developed as a person; gained more patience than I ever thought I would have, more compassion, and I just love every single child in that class. I have watched them grow not only academically but also emotionally and socially.
I have 18 girls and 8 boys in my classroom, so you can just imagine the drama that goes on (yes, even when they're only 7 and 8). One day, the drama between the girls was getting so bad (I got sick of hearing "she was mean to me on the playground!" "She said I can't play with them because I don't have a blue shirt!" etc.) that I sent my 8 boys to art class and kept all 18 girls in the classroom with me for about 20 minutes. We sat in a circle on the floor (I was down there with them) and I asked them to raise their hand if someone in our class has ever said anything mean to or about them. Everyone raised their hand. Then, I asked them to raise their hand if they had ever said anything mean about someone else in the class. Again, everyone raised their hand. So, I said "if you know what it feels like when people say mean things about you, why would you ever want to say mean things about someone else?" I let them sit and think about that for a moment, before we moved on. I let them share times that they felt hurt by someone's words, whether it was someone in the class or not. Once everyone had a chance, we went around the circle and had to say something nice about the person sitting to their right. It worked out almost better than I had expected, they all seemed to love the activity and appreciated me caring enough to try to do something about it. Things have been going much better since.
Even moments like that, I am going to miss. I went to Fun Night last night, stood in a gym for 40 minutes with a ton of 2nd and 3rd graders running around screaming, and I had a smile on my face every second. Some people think I'm crazy, but I just can't explain it. Being in the presence of a child can brighten my whole day.
As I said, Tuesday will be very rough. Every year will be rough, I was only with these children for 3 months, I can't imagine what my first full year will be like (which hopefully will be next year!). I've made little postcards for each child as a parting gift of sorts, and I know they've made something for me (because they're too young to keep a secret). I can't believe its already the end, time flew by this semester. I couldn't have hand picked a better group to be with, and I'll be very sad to go! I'm hoping to make it through the day without any tears, wish me luck!
