Chronically Awkward

So the time came for my big goodbye, leaving my school bonanza...

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M'kay, so here's what I wrote at the beginning:

The countdown is officially on. 4 days of school left. To this day, some students and teachers don't know were I'm from, my name or what I do here lol.

Case in point, with my first class of the day, during the good morning routine (where they greet the main teacher and then me) one student at the front says confidently:

Good morning Miss Emma!

Miss WHO boy?!

There are still students who call me by last year (or even the year before)'s assistant's name. Like. What? And when I told them I was leaving, the same student (who I know very well) and who has seen me for 9 months asks where I'm even from..... I know they'll miss me though. This was proved by one student saying he'll put a bomb on the plain so I can't leave. A joke ofc.....

^ My face when I heard all of these things. ^

All in all people are sad I'm leaving - most of my classes anyway. Grade 1 & 2 were the funniest to tell, the look of complete disbelief and sadness on their little faces made my day I can't even lie. One of the main reasons I like teaching has nothing to do with imparting knowledge, I like bonding with the kids. Basically, I love it when they love me. Selfish, but very true.

Which is why I'm fixing to bring in treats on my last day. I've got maoams for the kids and if money and time permits, cupcakes for the teachers so it should all be gravy come Friday. I intend to leave in a blaze of glory and a trail of student tears lol. Speaking of which one of my grade 2's was on the verge of tears when she found out I was leaving. Made my entire day. Plus I got lots of hugs from my extra tiny students and even a choke hold hug from one of my grade 5's.

When I said goodbye to my favourite grade 2 class today they looked so upset I actually had to take a minute. That class is one of the few where I feel closer to them than the bilingual group I take out and work with. I had to turn around and go be busy for a while - you know kids will stare you down with no shame, and I'm not about to cry when it's no where near Friday.

Some of them grade 6's stay rude as ever though. When my co-teacher made my leaving announcement in the class I had today it was like:

She's leaving, and?

The girls in that group are the WORST! The teacher went in on them though and said the bilinguals I worked with most of the year should take this time to show their appreciation. Cut to all bar one rolling out of the class at the end, not a word. And you guessed it, the exception, and two extra from the same class, were boys. One of my strongest bilinguals thanked me for helping him, and then another two, who have some of the most difficulty in English class and school in general, came to tell me goodbye. So forget the rest of the class, I do it for them.

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And here's how it went down on Thursday and Friday:

My last official day teaching was awful. And my last day in school going through all my stuff was even worse.

Basically......

Thursday is usually always a good day as I only have two classes to teach, grade 3 and either grade 2 or 7. This week was grade 7, the learning difficulties class and actually one of my all-time favourite groups. This was proved by what I will now be referring to as the beginning of Thank-You-Card-Gate 2014. There was no real lesson plan for the day (once you get to June and exams are over it's pretty much pointless activities to keep them busy and speaking English at the same time) so the chosen activity - once they found out it was my last day - was making me Thank You cards.

LOOK AT THIS:

My Riches

He explained each letter to me but all I
remember is the Y is a school tie lol

My pop-up and flag from my sweetie ^

I know she got help to write the inside,
but she put so much time into this card, I love it!

Emmanuelle is my girl! Her favourite colour is purple - just like me - and
she wears it all the time, if she could she would every day!
I don't think I'll ever forget that...

They came with bars...I'm sure the main teacher suggested those lines but I don't even care. They went on computers and found pictures of the Canadian and Quebecois flag to copy for me, one kid even made the most elaborate handmade card I've ever gotten. It had a pop-up and he even turned all the letters into different images to do with me and with school. #SoSweet (hey Gwynne!) I'm not gonna sit there and play Queen Elizabeth and just let my people come and bring me tribute without giving anything back so I made them a class card and wrote a cute message of their own. Their homeroom teacher read it out and translated it to them

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Grade 3 was bittersweet but not devastating. I have my faves in the class and a massive group (8 girls) of bilinguals I had been working with the whole year. They were all in exam period still so I spent my last class helping them with their speaking assessment and listening to two of my bilinguals give their class presentations on their pets. They were two of my weakest students so I was real proud of them, signing and miming at them from the back of the class the whole way through....

Their achievements are my achievements - because it means I actually taught them something
and didn't just twiddle my thumbs and play hangman with them for 9 months.....

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The rest of the day and Friday was spent doing the worst of the worst. Paperwork. Which for me means getting Residence Abroad stuff signed that I had forgotten to do months ago and also sorting through all the crap I'd accumulated over 9 months.

I'm not gonna lie, working in a primary school is too much work. I was so out of my depth it was unreal. So much planning has to be done and every grade is so different, not to mention where the lines blur on ability levels. I had to put together so many worksheets and activities and even make stuff up then remember it for later. I was left up to my eyeballs with so much material, half of which I didn't even get to use. One thing I will say though, is that I do good work. I don't give my kids no boring, crusty, Times New Roman no-visual-aids work to do. Not ever. So I had to sort through it and catalogue everything for the teacher to use next year.....

But at about 1:30pm on the Friday I had a moment to sit and realise that this all just wasn't gonna happen for me. All them days of going home and collapsing from exhaustion/laziness after school and running away on weekend adventures instead of cataloguing my work then made my day an absolute mission. I went from not even working on Friday's to leaving at 6pm on my last day. Putting things in folders, recycling, cutting, pasting, downloading, dragging and saving. It was insanity. And there are teachers that do this on a regular?! Like, is this really life? Is this what a career in education means? Let's be real, is this what caring about your students' future education means, because to be honest if I wasn't so attached to them I could have chucked everything and left them to eat my dust, sink or swim without me really. But I did care, so I stayed late, finished my work and then wrote a ridiculously emotional goodbye letter, left my students some candy and left, rather than lighting a match and letting it burn when I walked away....Here's why:

Grade 3 & 4 all signed their names <3

But Grade 5 & 6, my most pain-in-the-behind classes went INNNN

"Thank you Miss Monique for helping me with my writing.
If I pass English its gonna be because of you. Tommy",
I cried when I read this. I do not even care.

Flipping clown, this girl always had jokes. No I love you.
Have a good life. THANKS Josie lol

My most neeky, geeky, goodie-two-shoes, go the extra mile kid ever.
People will work for her one day I'm sure.

"Thank you for all your help and I had super Mondays"

One of my laziest bilingual students lol. Apparently I didn't"learn"
her enough spelling but she hates writing so I appreciate it.
I still love her, you'll probably see her on a runway soon....

Most of them spelt my (French) name this way, but I love this because
she was one of my most eye-rolling, neck-bending always chatting students ever!

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So that's it. They made me care. Even the worst of the worst classes made me care. At the beginning, and even most of the way through, I was convinced that primary school wasn't for me and that maybe I should even re-consider ever teaching at all.... But I freaking love it. I love working with kids. Especially the ones who have it hard. I actually love teaching English as a second language even if all the work drives me insane. So sign me up, get me my own office or classroom so I can drown under piles of paper, buy my students' love with candy (notice I can't even say sweets now lol) and have breakdowns in the school toilets when necessary!