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Showing entries for Category: last
Showing entries for Category: last
The "Lasts" of High School
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This last month of teaching at Oakton High School is the last time my students experience all sorts of events: dances, ceremonies, lunch lines, bells, early start times, nightly homework assignments. I am in the interesting position of going through these "lasts" along with them as I prepare to teach at George Mason University full-time next year, giving up my high school job. I feel like I'm "graduating", too. Each day as the students file in, I am aware it's the "last" AP test, or class on James Joyce, or oral report on Pride and Prejudice. All those "lasts" make me a bit sad, whereas all their "lasts" make them jubilant. It's so true that when we're young we only look forward and not backward, but as we age we see that it's all-important to look both ways, simultaneously. That adds a layer of meaning and gives each event a complexity it wouldn't otherwise have. Actually, I retract my blanket statement that they ONLY look forward. Some of my students are sad to leave the womb of high school, and the friends they've grown up with. Maybe we're not so different, after all. 
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Erica Jacobs
Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.
Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.
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