Tough Decisions....

Well not really that tough in the overall scheme of life, but still.....

I've been packing up my classroom this week. We usually have to store everything (and lock the cabinets) because summer school for our county is held in our building. This year is different, though, because we are moving to a new/old facility (even closer to my house - yay!) next year.

I've been resisting packing, mainly because I hate to do it, and I've been grumbling a little (a lot?) because it seems doubly irritating to pack everything up, move it, and then pack it up again at the end of next year when I retire.

That's 177 school days away, if you're counting. Including furlough days already scheduled for next year. Minus any personal days (almost always used for bicycling events) or sick days (didn't take any this year.... or last year) I might take.

I've had to take everything off the walls this year, which is not something I normally have to do. The wall over my desk is covered with things students have drawn or written for me (yes, they still do that in high school, especially if it gets them out of having to do their WORK for a few minutes), and I try to put all of them up. It's a big wall, what the heck. I think I had five different drawings produced by one student alone.

I used to have BRAG posters lining the walls of my room, in chronological order, for every single year I have ridden BRAG. I took them down one year when they were going to paint our classrooms, and I never put them back up. Yesterday I threw them away, shocking even myself.

I kept most of the pictures of students, even the creepy ones (why are those the ones who ALWAYS give me pictures?). I'll move them to the new school, but I'm not sure I'll put the pictures back up. At least not all of them. Likewise I'll keep the pictures of students' babies, who will look nothing like the pictures next time I see them.

I threw away old Gym Dogs schedules that I had taped to the wall. I think I had at least the last two seasons still up there. I kept my Gym Dogs calendar, because it will, after all, still be good for a few months after we return to school.

I kept a couple of pages from the page-a-day calendar Hubby and I always have, "365 of the Stupidest Things Ever Said." Some of them are worthy of being displayed in my classroom, and I hate to part with them. I should have scanned them (or photographed them) to put on my blog before I packed them up. I threw away the cartoon in which the Pepsi employee is being fired because, as his boss says, "The test came back....You tested positive for Coke." That one doesn't apply anymore, since Hubby retired from Pepsi over a year ago. I also threw away a cartoon with a couple of frogs, one of which was saying, "Walden Pond is a much nicer place when Thoreau isn't here." I never did get that one, but someone thought it was funny enough to give it to me, so I put it on my wall.

I kept a little paper finger-puppet made by one of my students when he was doing a movie based on "The Raven." The head of the puppet keeps falling off, and I tape it back on and put it back on the wall. The student who made it didn't finish with us, but he is now in the Navy and LOVES IT. He came back to see us a couple of times, and I'm so glad he turned things around.

Tomorrow I have some even tougher decisions to make. I have some books and teaching materials that are no longer appropriate for my students, and there is no sense in moving them. I may have to haul them to the dumpster. Throwing books away goes against my nature.

But if I did it with the BRAG posters, I'm sure I can handle the books.