Sayounara

Yesterday was my last day teaching at Shimada ES. The school only has 60 students, and I got to know each and every one of them.

The kids at that school aren’t as academically driven as my other schools, but they are my most creative bunch. They were as a whole terrible at memorization, but they were the most gung-ho about trying to use what they knew, and in the end their English was pretty good.

I had a few parties with the students where we played lots of games. I played volleyball with them at their recesses. It was a really fun day. I was doing fine emotionally until I to the end of my work day, the students had all been sent home at 2:30 (normal time) and I had cleaned my desk and given each teacher a thank you letter. Each of the teachers said something nice about me, and thanked me for a great year together. I was still doing fine, until I got in my car, and started to drive home.

Most of my students had come back to school; many of them had signs that said “I love Katie-Teacher”. They were all on bikes, and led a mini parade for me out of the school. It was the sweetest send off I could imagine.