Returning Seniors

Last night was the first home football game. Although I was stuck in the ticketbooth, I still got to see a several of my students who graduated last year. I couldn't help but to show my excitement, saying "hi!" in an annoying high-pitched tone, asking them questions about what they're doing now when they probably just wanted to buy their ticket and go in. I even made two of my favorite girls hug me through the ticket window. I couldn't help myself.

I feel such a sense of accomplishment seeing these young men and women who I saw every day (for some of them twice a day in Physics and Trig/Precal) last year in college, reaching their goals. In the beginning of August at teacher orientation when some of us teachers I were eating lunch at Long's Drugstore, one of my former students came in to pick up a club sandwich (which ironically all three of us had ordered,too). When we saw each other we both lit up...he has an infectious, shy smile. I asked him how his summer was and what he had done, and he told me he had taken classes at Tougaloo, one of them being physics. I was excited, and asked how it was, and if he had gotten to electricity (something we didn't make it to last year and I still feel guilty about). He smiled and said no, and that it was easy, that everything we had gone over last year was what was covered in his summer course.

On the next day, we ran into another student who had also taken summer classes, one of hers being college algebra. She had been in my Algebra II class, and was not the best student (simply because she was lazy and was doing too many extracurricular activities during my class). She said it was easy, and that the teacher had even asked her to tutor other students.

I want so much for my students, as I'm sure we all do, and knowing that I'm actually helping some of these kids means more than anything.