Yesterday, it was decided that my combination room would cease to exist in 3 weeks. While we would all not be erased from the school but instead be placed into other rooms, it still felt as a virtual erasing. 4th grade has simply become too overcroweded and the shcool board agreed to get us another teacher. I then had the hard choice to go back to 4th and keep those students or move onto 5th and keep those students. I chose my old grade level and team and therefore had to face 13 confused 5th graders today that did not understand why I did not choose them.
You see, most of those students were my old kids from last year. My school does not have a split class philosophy but tends to bring it out in an emergency situation. Last year was deemed such an emergency and I therefore volunteered to take this strange experiment on bringing 8 of my old students with me. And although I was terrified for the year to start, I was also strangely elated. I said I wanted a challenge and I got one. But now that challenge is being taken away and we face our goodbyes much too soon. While we usually have a year worth of memories to look back upon, this time we are only afforded 6 weeks. So how do you say goodbye when you have only just begun?
I have to keep teaching. As much as I want to revert to end of year celebrations and events; I cannot. These students will have to keep going as if nothing happened, but the truth is they already know we have changed. As one student said today, "But Mrs. Ripp, nobody asked us" and that's exactly it; they were not asked because we think we know best. And although classroom size does definitely make a huge difference in student academic success, sometimes we as adults need to relax a little bit and realize that although size matters; connection matters more.
Those 27 students of mine that kind of knew each other from before and then maybe not really, have become a class. And not out of sheer luck or because they are that nice (they are that nice, by the way) but because we have worked hard on it. We have discussed what type of community we wanted to be, we created our Animoto on our hopes and wishes for the year that now have been viewed more than 900 times. We dreamed about the Global Read Aloud project and how we would be the home base for it. All of these things pushed us tighter together. We were different from the rest of the school, we knew it, and we celebrated it.
And now it is almost over. I cried when the principal told me the decision even though I knew that the kids would get a better experience in social studies and science when their teacher only had to teach one grade level at a time. I could have made it work, and more importantly, I would have made it work because we would have done it together. And now I must pick up the pieces, those sad faces, and try to sell my classroom one more time to a new group of kids that will fill out our roster. To a new group of parents that wished for smaller class sizes but not necessarily that their kids would be moved. I must sell it to myself; once again build up the excitement, the anticipation, the urgency to teach and teach well. To reach these students and to connect, knowing that those original 14 may be a little more wary this time connecting to others.
So what can we learn from these events? The way of the future is bigger class sizes but fundamentally we must not change our determination to connect with our students. We must not be afraid to let each other in even if the future in uncertain. I make the time every day to reach out to every one, and already I had somehow managed to help them create a home in our room. I know I will cry on our last day together, I am by nature a softie, and yet I will pass them on to their new teacher with one simple message: believe in them, because they are truly the changers of the future, the movers of the world. Do not be afraid to believe.
