classwork

the last day of classes is a day when kids expect to run around wild and silly. when the last day is a monday, half the kids don't show up, but the few who do really, really expect to run around wild. and quite silly. i started letting the kids know the very first day of school that i'd be teaching right up to and including the last day. it's not out of any professional anything. it's not out of love of power. it's just that i can't take chaos. i can't take noise. and most of all, i can't take boredom. so i started talking about it the very first day and have stepped up the reminders the last week or so. if you show up monday, there will be an assignment. i'll expect you to do this assignment. the truth is i don't expect them to do much. i just feel like i have to have something for them to do.

so the last day came. monday. cool and rainy. miserable. and the kids showed up. some kids i hadn't seen in weeks. in months. kids i barely knew. funny how age and experience can make you absolutely sure that if you were a student, you'd stay home on a day like this. but they came in and sat down. there was an assignment written out on an overhead sheet, a letter i wanted them to write. take it seriously. it's important. and to my surprise they did. i knew they wouldn't have pens or paper so i had that ready. each child wrote. and not just a little. a page. two pages. the better part of an hour each class wrote a letter to the english teacher they'd meet next year. a letter saying the secret things teachers always wish they could find out before they start working with a kid. there's a new baby at home and i'm babysitting all the time. i take two trains and a bus from east new york to get here. i like stories but i'm not good at reading.

four classes came and went and with each new class i was surprised again. they'd come in howling about how i was evil for giving them work. true. always true. they'd say nobody else gave them anything. i'd say that should make it easy to do just this one thing. but none of them said, "this is stupid. i'm not doing it." the letters are resting in a folder on my desk. there will be schedules and revamping of schedules over the summer. sometime in the first week of the fall term i'll open the folder. i'll sort the letters and give them to the appropriate teachers. i don't know that these teachers will read the letters. i don't know that it will matter. but the kids thought it was a good idea. while other kids were running down hallways, screaming, throwing stink bombs, pouring water on each other, they wrote letters.