Done

[Editor’s Note: Miss G is the pseudonym for a second-year special education teacher in the Bronx.]

With grad school.

As of Saturday, May 9, I’m officially done, and graduation is May 21.

As a final activity we had to fill out chart paper with “things we would take with us” and “things we’d leave behind” – not from grad school, but the Teachers for America experience … from learning to be a teacher, a New Yorker, and… well… a grown up.

Some were funny, some were serious, and some gave rise to this knot in my throat that is still there when I think about the last day of school in June.

I looked around the room at people I’d known for the last 2 years. We came in thinking we could change the world, that we knew everything about urban education, and that nothing could shake us as people. I think all of that was shattered within our first week as teachers.

We were shaken, proved wrong, questioned, and made responsible for some of the toughest kids you’ll probably ever meet — the special education students of New York City’s public schools.

We came in as future accountants, lawyers, investment bankers and politicians. We’re leaving as teachers. Even those of us that aren’t staying in education can’t help but look at the world as an advocate. “My kids” is the way we begin every other sentence, even though very few of us have any biological children.

This is not the end, but the beginning of lives changed, not just for us, but for our students.

We’ve made a difference. Could the impact have been bigger? Yes. Could we have been better? Yes. Is there room for improvement within Teachers for America? Yes. But are my kids better off because I was their teacher? I hope so. I definitely am. That’s what I’ll try to take with me. That and the privilege of getting to know 13 of the most resilient people I’ve ever met.

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