School Days: And all of a sudden they were seniors

I started my 12th year of teaching this week and have been loving getting to know my new group of students. Ah, childhood.

We elementary school teachers probably spend more waking hours with our students than with anyone else for nine months out of the year.  Needless to say, a special bond is formed.  Every year I refer to my students as "my kids" when I talk about them to my friends and family.  

The other day, I realized that my very first class of 1st graders that I ever taught are now SENIORS!

They were in my class when they were 6 years old, learning how to read and add and subtract and properly hold a pencil and control the impulse to flail their arms while walking in line.  And now, well...some of them can vote.  And they're choosing colleges and will soon live on their own.  Time marches on.  Selah.

Wait a minute. They're seniors?  How is that even possible??!

I've taught with teachers who have been in the game much longer than me and who have even taught their previous students' children.  How cool is that?  While I don't know what that feels like, I must say it does feel incredibly satisfying to think of my first set of kids graduating this year.

I remember each one of them, and oh I can tell classroom stories!  I used to keep a journal dedicated soley to all the funny things my students said in class.  I abandoned that halfway through my first year though because it just became too hard to keep track of the darling hilarity that ensued on a regular basis.

My first class, 2004 

I would love to know how each of them are doing, but I don't live in Colorado anymore and am only still in contact with three of the families.  What I would LOVE is to pose them in this same picture in the same positions, just 12 years later.  Wouldn't that be fantastic?

Anyway, this post is dedicated to you, class of 2016.  You are remembered!  And loved!