It wasn't a permanent goodbye -- I'll see them next week for their final presentations -- but it was our last class together. They've been a good group and I will miss them, making today a little bittersweet.
Teaching first year students is rewarding in a number of ways. They come in looking so grown-up, their young adult bodies masking fears not so different from kindergartners on their first day of school. They don't know what they don't know, but they do know they don't know everything and, on top of that, many are away from home -- some far from home -- for the first time. My job, as I see it, is to create a safe space for them where they not only learn, but can ask whatever is on their minds. Between me and my fellow, we can answer most, if not all, of their questions, helping them to settle in and freeing up their mental energy for college pursuits.
Today was a perfect example of how far they have come. When I first met them, I shared the advice last year's class had written for them at this time; today, they were the ones writing the advice that I will share next fall. Over a month ago, they wrote their personal mission statements. Last night, I put them all together into a slide show and added some music. Together, we watched their words flash on the screen, an experience that brought silence to the room, along with a few surreptitious tears.
When I met them in August, they were enthusiastic, excited and a little unsure of what to expect from their first semester. Today, they are exhausted and a little unsure of what to expect from finals week, but they are more confident and more relaxed. In August, they were college students-in-the-making. Now, they are college students, and I am so proud that I could participate in that process.
Look out world, here they come. Take good care of them for me, okay?
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