Get a move on

It's often difficult to leave a job. No matter how shitty/ draining/ underpaid/ boring your job was, or how exciting your future prospects are, you;re bound to feel some sting of nostalgia at moving on. At the very least, we tend to feel a camaraderie with our work colleagues; a friendship born of a shared misery.

What's weird about teaching is that that feeling of kinship relates not just to your work fellows, but to your students. The responsibility you have for them; the extensive effort you devote over a period of time; the potential you're privy to; the moment you realise you've cracked the shell of one of the toughest nuts in the classroom. Teaching means you are REALLY invested in your work, in a way it is hard to be with accounts, or insurance, or stocks.

I'm leaving my school at the end of the week, and I'm finding this quite hard to cope with. I teach VCAL, which means I teach kids who are on the outer within the school community. Non VCAL teachers reject them because they can be damned hard work; fellow students dismiss them as 'dumb'. As a result, the VCAL boys are a tight knit group, and as a teacher it is incredibly rewarding to crack them, and feel you've made it 'in' with them.

In my school, I am very much on the VCAL team. I am defensive of VCAL to other students, I am protective of my boys to other teachers, I am proud as punch when they achieve success, and I am damn pissed off that VCAL is not represented at a Student Leadership level. This only makes it harder to be leaving. It seems a lot harder than when I left Kew, which is odd, as I taught there for a year, and here for not even a term.

The boys have been saying they want me to stay, and that they'll go on strike to demand my reinstatement. They also asked what I wanted as a present (which may well never ACTUALLY eventuate, but nice thought) and want to have a farewell lunch for me (which the cynic in me scoffs at as time out of class!). There's a very good chance that the boys will have forgotten me in a few weeks, after their regular teacher comes back. But right now, it's pretty saddening to be moving on.

P.S. I had an utterly shitful day at school today. All of my classes were absolute brats, and my yard duty was rotten. And I am STILL sentimental about leaving. Imagine the gush if I'd actually had a GOOD day!