Graduating to the Empty Nest

Our school parent organization hosts a special dinner for parents whose last child is graduating from the high school. Recently, it was my turn to attend.

This year has been a string of lasts: the last open house, homecoming, musical, concert, play, and now: graduation. This past week was a series of landmarks: the last day of classes, honors night, choral awards, theatre night, and soon, the big event itself.

My daughter entered high school in 2008. She graduated in 2012 and her brother took her place. His graduation means that my wife and I will be empty-nesters at home and at school. While we will attend concerts, plays, and events, I’ll leave my camera at home. We’ll only see the theatre productions once.

Life will be different.

When my daughter graduated college, she came home for the summer and then moved to Boston for graduate school. The pattern was the same even if the details were different. But that pattern is gone forever. It is unlikely that we will have another summer with the four of us at home. Even though my son will be home until late August, his job will keep him out of the house in the day, and his friends will most likely occupy much of his free time. He will teach us how to live with his empty room, just as we have grown accustomed to his sister’s absence.

I have never been good at letting go, and I don’t really want to let go now. I have loved being a father, and while my children’s launching doesn’t make me less of a father, it means I am more a long distance dad instead of the father on the line. I like being the father on the line.

I love being the teacher on the line, too. This graduation means saying farewell to students some of whom I have known since they were in elementary school. I will deeply miss my son’s classmates. Many were my students or we shared homeroom, advisory, or another activity. Although new students will fill the chairs in my classes next year, the class of 2016 has spoiled me and I am working hard to lower my expectations for the classes to come.  I am going to be pining for my former students next fall.

Right now, I am simply wishing that all of them, my own child and his wonderful friends, could do it again. I offered to home college my son, but for some reason, he didn’t take me up on it.

My son will come home once in a while. Most of his classmates I will never see again. I will bump into some throughout the years. Through Facebook or email, I will keep in touch with a few. Because they are my child’s class, I have a better chance of hearing about them through him. But graduation is the big goodbye for most of us.

My camera is out and I am capturing all these last events. I am dreading them because of their finality, but I want to enjoy and celebrate these special milestones. I am trying to negotiate both. 

Each year, I want to hang on to my students. I take photos, write cards, and try to capture the specialness of the moment. I am always partially successful. We leave an indelible mark on each other. But such marks fade.

I am so grateful that my son and his class have permitted me to share high school with them. I am so fortunate that, as a high school teacher, I got to play a unique role in my children’s lives at home and at school. I don’t want that to end. I am not sure what my new role looks like. The old role fit so well. 

So Class of 2016, bon voyage, mazel tov, and qapla’; I am looking forward to your new adventures and our new relationship – and I will miss you!

Teacher's Favorite

Something transformative happened in fourth period. While we were discussing an assembly about gender, a student noted that one of his teachers always picked on the boys, “The girls are her favorites.” Somehow, this moved us into a discussion about teacher’s favorites, and they asked me the question, “Do you have favorites, Mr. Hirsch?”

The answer was easy, “Of course, I have favorites!” I said. I asked them to raise their hands if they liked some teachers better than others. Every student raised a hand. Teachers are just like students, I told them. There are people who we connect with better than others, and there are some who press our buttons.

That was the moment. It happened right then. When I noted that teachers, like all of us, have students they don’t like as much, the entire class looked toward one boy. They all thought he was the student who fit that description.

They were wrong.

Being a teacher is improvisational. No matter how well you plan or how many years you have taught, you cannot prepare for everything.

I shook my head and told them that the boy in question was my favorite. Gasp! No one was more surprised than he was. I told them that I work hard to make sure that all students feel as though they are my favorite. It is my goal to give the teacher’s favorite treatment to every student – even the ones who may be a little challenging in class.

Of course, teachers gravitate toward some students and away from others. We are human. However, it is our job to recognize this, acknowledge it, and then consciously control it.

Yes, there are a few instances where that is not possible. In more than thirty years in the classroom, I can count on one hand the students I really wished were not in my room. They are rare. The boy in question is as far from being one of those students as I am from being an NHL quarterback.

I don’t know who started it, but the kids in fourth period started calling each other, “favorite.” We greeted each other that way for a while.

“Hello, Pat, my favorite.”  

“See you tomorrow, my favorite.”

“Do you have a question, my favorite?”

It even carried into the halls for a little while, until we agreed it was a little embarrassing to be so open about such things.

But the tone in the classroom had altered subtly. The boy who was the focus has changed substantially. His behavior since this discussion has been different. His need for my attention has diminished, although not completely. My reassurance that I liked him, that he was not one of “those” kids, that he was a favorite, has transformed our relationship and even the feeling of the class.

Should I declare that I like all my students in public this way all the time? Probably. I thought I was doing it in other ways, but perhaps I need to be more direct.

It feels good to be a favorite. It feels really good to know that someone, especially the teacher, likes you. And I do like them – all of them. It is not an act. It is a decision to make sure that I convey that to them. Some of them can read that from our day-to-day interactions. Some of them know this because of the way I greet them when they enter our room, from our hallway hellos, and the notes I write on their assignments.

Some may need more than that; some may need me to look at them and say, “you are my favorite.”

Next year, I am telling them earlier.