Closing Time

I love that song, "Closing Time." Though most of this popular Green Day song does not apply - I think this line does, "Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." The song reminds me of that feeling of wanting to linger just a bit longer, and strangely enough, I feel that way today. Just a bit longer, mind you! I still want to get to all those good books I have not had time to read yet this summer! But I find this is a surprising way to feel, the desire to linger longer after giving up four weeks of summer, getting up early, working hard reading and writing!
I wondered at first how I would fit in with the "younger crowd" teachers, but I have continually felt my comments just as valued and relevant. I have learned so much from the demonstrations that I can take back to improve my college classroom.
Some of our discussions have just broken my heart - on one had to hear the love and dedication for students and on the other hand witnessing a system in action through everyone 's stories, full of testing and policies that seems to thwart strong teaching at every turn.

I hear echoing in the words of everyone the "new beginnings" that will be taking place in many classrooms this fall that have come from the end of this institute.

My greatest hope is that through programs such as these we can start to see our teaching of reading and writing on a continuum - each building the work of another all the way to college level, not just the incremental grade level to grade level.