Hello gentle reader… it’s been awhile!  I apologize, but if you are teacher like me, you know about that post-Spring Break-WHOA-buckle up-It’s Suddenly June time of year. If you are reading this, you have survived… well done, you.

I was saying to a non-teacher friend the other day that there are certain things that happen in June that affect teachers in ways other mortals don’t know.  June, as September, is always a time of transition. Always of saying farewell, safe travels, careful how you go. September is a time of Halloo! welcome, well met. June also comes with a sense of great relief, anticipation of 2 months of no bells, no alarm clocks, no dressing up (or down!).  But  there is more to June than holiday excitement.  Part of our job (though it’s not in the job description) is to bond with our learners. Or, put another way, create connections with our kids. I’ll never forget being out somewhere with my-then 4 year old daughter when a student hailed me from across the way: “Hi Mrs Uncoordinated! Hi! Is that your daughter!?!?  HI!!!”  You can picture it.  As we walked away, my (real) daughter said to me “Is that one of your kids?”.  Other teachers know exactly what I mean.

But sometimes we have to pack up classrooms and move.  Sometimes we stay, but change grades or subjects.  Sometimes we have to part with cherished colleagues. And we do cherish our fellow teachers, when we click, when we speak the same language and share the same philosophies. You start September knowing you must say good bye to “your kids” in June, and yet still it is sometimes difficult.  But some of the most tearful good- byes I’ve had is when one of us has had to leave.  This year is the first June that I have not been in a school, and I kind of thought this June would be different, no painful good-byes, no difficult transitions.

Hmm…. isn’t the Universe HILARIOUS sometimes, just when you think you’ve got it all worked out…

But here is what I have learned about being a teacher….for 22 years!….. the good-byes very often become “Oh hello!  You again!” When I moved from Elementary school to Middle School, and then High school, I had the experience of teaching some of my grade 4’s two or three times. What an amazing way to really see how a learner matures.  These days, when I get invited into a secondary school classroom, occasionally I see a familiar face.  I will be out of “my kids” in 2 more years.  I guess that will be a June-of-melencholy too.

And so, with that, as I reflect on past students, colleagues stepping (gleefully) into retirement and the people I once cherished leaving my life, I consider June and I to have a bit of a Love/Hate relationship.

Of course, you, dear reader, and I both know that the heart of a teacher is anything but fickle…. they’ll always be my kids, my colleagues, my own cherished ones.

Shut up, those are tears of joy.