Commencement

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This time of year, there are grades to be finalized, speeches to be made, and toasts to be cheered. Graduates from all across the country and grade spectrum are celebrating the culmination of work that allow them to move on to the next steps.

Classmates watch anxiously, unable to shake the idea that this may be the last time they're seeing each other, since when you move on, you don't always take everyone with you.

Speakers are reassuring these same graduates that a commencement is not an end but a beginning. When one door closes, another opens. Your future starts now. These are all commonly uttered as we celebrate the our hard work.

Moms may dab tissues into the corners of eyes to protect the makeup; they may stand and scream with pride and glee watching their babies walking across stage to collect the document affirming that, yes, this part of the process is complete.

Fathers may stand stoically with silent pride beaming from their chests seeing their children achieve; they may giggle like school children with the joy that comes from the private joke of seeing a district level administrator shaking hands with their child, who at one time needed help burping.

Younger siblings look on with adoration, knowing that one day, it will be their turn.

Teachers? Teachers watch as well. They lament the loss of the group they've come to know so well. They swell with pride at the children who have become young men and women under their tutelage. They wish for further successes, while recognizing that this is truly the end. Their time with this class is over.

It is a time of release, and it is time for reflection, because next year starts right now.

And that's what it is for the teachers. Commencement. The beginning of next year. The start of the planning process. Teachers can look at each one of the graduates walking across the stage with whom they've had interaction and know what they could have done differently or better. These thoughts are part of the process. What do I wish I knew when last year started?  I'll make that call home sooner.  I won't teach that book the same way.  I'll have more technology tools in my tool belt.  I'll use a different diagnostic.  I won't have so many rules. I'll have more rules.  I'll decorate my class differently.  I know that the kids will be different. I'll be different.

I once read (and I don't remember where) a sixth grade teacher said, "I may teach 6th grade every year, but my students get 6th grade once." So at commencement, enjoy it all, and soak it all in. Celebrate the successes of your former students. Just don't ever forget that it is a beginning.  It is the beginning to the only time that a teacher's next students get to be in the next grade.  That teacher is already working to make sure it's amazing.

Congratulations to all the graduates of 2014.