Every year at school, packing takes forever. Our ninth graders really don’t want to pack, so they put it off for days. Then the hall looks like a disaster area. Their rooms look like grenades have gone off in them. And the hall and rooms are filled with half-packed boxes. The kids themselves look shell-shocked, and who can blame them? The lives they’ve lived in safety and security for two, three, four years are about to blow up. They know it, and they’re running a little scared.
For the first time in a long while, I’m packing too. The books are all just about packed. I’m leaving a lot behind, or throwing them away. Tonight I started on art supplies and filing boxes. Those are just about done. And tonight I also made a decision on apartment… one which will require me to be relatively homeless for about a month between June 30 and August 1.
Part of me is excited about this and part of me is deeply dismayed. While I like the idea of a vagabond existence, I’m not sure I’m ready to live it.
So for the first time in a long while, I totally sympathize with the disorder on my dorm and the shell-shock in my students’ eyes. I share it.
And Andrew, it’s comments like the one above from Hirsch that remind you why you do this job — and that, despite working in a place that has never fully supported you, why you will continue to do this job (albeit in a new school that will appreciate and respect your many talents).
Mr. Watt its hard to believe I was in that same place and i came to you dismayed and in an endless en-wonderment of the world around me! i came to you seeking your wisdom which was and still is, thank God, wise beyond your years. i will give you the same advice you gave me and i hope it helps i will be informal if you do not mind it is also not a transliteration of what you said just what i interpreted it to mean…
Andrew the whole world is out there and i know there is no way in hell you will understand it i will try and help, you can try your best to get things to work out more often than not they will not work to your advantage, but on those rare moments that they do work seize them and go Jack Bauer on their ass and get the knowledge you need out of them (that part is me)! Though shell-shocked they may be you must sometimes look inward to find the answers outside the box… you have been there a great deal longer than 3 or 4 years and the school and the kids who have gotten to know you have changed titanically in a good way because of you. just the other day i was talking to John Mallen and my cousin Haas Carter and they both remember you as the new caring dorm master of south dormitory. You are a wonderful teacher, a wonderful friend, mentor and above all a wonderful person and i hope moving on is easier for you than it will be for those who have to move on from you…
There are people who stand out in ones life like a sore thumb on a broken hand well you go through life doing good and bad deeds with your hands and as in the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector the hands must be hidden during prayer by the tax collector well my hands have been scratched and nicked and broken as i know yours have and Mr. Watt you are my sore thumb in the best way that could be meant thank you for your help i hope mine is nearly as good.