Looking Forward

I've got to face facts: Nine years is an eternity in elementary education. Yes, I still harbor deep-seated fantasies about being that "Mister Holland" teacher who comes to a school with a chip on his shoulder and dreams of doing anything else with his life, but then ends up retiring from that same school decades later. I am currently working hard on my second decade at the place I was first hired. I've worked hard, stayed late, and followed directions.
I've also lost track of the names and faces of many of the people with whom I have worked over the years. The average teaching career lasts just five years. I suppose I should take heart in the fact that there are still two teachers at my school who have been in the business longer than I have been. Not at the same site, but they've been grading papers and lining kids up since before I came to California. Still, that's the challenge: sticking with it.
My mentor teacher, the one who brought me into this mess in the first place, has long since gone away. She left for a career in educational software. The woman who hired me, my first principal, has long since retired. I remember better the names and faces of the principals for whom I have worked, and this past week I found out that I'm going to have to add to that list. After nine years, the woman who helped our school find its way out of program improvement and herded us all through reconstitution is heading for what we all hope are greener pastures. She was the one who decided that I was one of the few teachers worth keeping when the big shakeup came back in 2004. Maybe I just happened to be holding on to the tree harder than anyone else when it was being shaken, but I must have made some sort of impression because I'm still there. So many of the teachers I sat in meetings with, cleaned up after Back To School Night with, managed rainy day recess with, fought the good fight with, have moved on.
I've got plenty of people telling me that this tenacity thing isn't my best career move. Even on the way out, I got a sincere nudge in the direction of the door by this lady who kept me around for all those years. I heard my own refrain to those who leave our little corner of elementary education: "As your colleague, I wish you would stay. As your friend, I wonder what's keeping you."
And so, after a particularly difficult year, she's giving up the captain's chair for one without quite so many daily parental tirades, kid fits and staff disruptions. Did I mention that she used to bake for us? I'm sure that our new principal will step right in and get to the work of keeping our heads above the procedural waters. I know that we'll all line up outside and start a new year with excitement and hope for what will be. But I'll be looking over my shoulder, just for a moment, for those who have gone before me.