Six years ago, on the eve of my retirement, a longtime colleague with whom I had worked thirty years prior on another side of the country, gave me terrific advice. He suggested that on my last day of employment, after everyone else had left the school building, I should walk through the halls and classrooms. Just me.
There is a special feel and smell about any school at the end of a day. One can hear the echoes of footsteps and conversations, laughter and chatter and (sometimes) tears. One can feel the business of classrooms through the paper on the floor, the book left by a half-open locker, a random sweatshirt on a chair. On the younger levels, whiffs of markers, glue and Essence of Kiddo linger. By middle and high school, add Essence of Boy Who Needs Deodorant mixed with too much cologne and wafts of Teenage Girl. Some rooms are neat and tidy, chairs stacked and all desks clean. Others reflect a more haphazard and last-minute scurry to the end of the day. Some walls are adorned with student work; some are either bare or reflect only decorations perfectly prepared and printed by adults.
Empty classrooms tell administrators as much about what transpires during the day as do full ones. I once worked with a teacher who insisted her students keep their desks and chairs in rows marked by X’s on the floor. Hers was not a space in which youngsters experienced much creativity or joy. Another transformed her classroom into a rainforest each year, assisted by her enthusiastic second graders. Some rooms smell musty, used, loved. Others are spic and span, so sterile they squeak. Every class and hallway is different. All of them are similar. For any teacher, former or current, entering a school evokes memories of legions of students, of colleagues, of good parents – and those who were a challenge. I cannot imagine another profession that could possibly include so many “ghosts.”
I took my last walk, as advised. I took my time. Forty-six years as an educator warranted time. My literal walk was in Incline Village, NV. My memories took me back to Tucson (a school where there were no hallways), to Denver, to Bethesda, to McLean, to Gahanna, to Malibu, to North Hollywood. Lots of schools. So many students and colleagues. The ghost parade grew as I traveled down corridors and peaked into empty rooms. I could hear laughter, questions, challenges, complaints, more laughter. I could feel the happy jostling of hundreds, thousands of those with whom I had shared my life. They gave me tremendous joy. They made me a better teacher, a better person. I suspect they taught me far more than I taught them.
I returned to my office, picked up my purse and one last box, locked the door behind me, and left. Glad and grateful.
Glass Full 