Veteran educator Daniel Gathman is no stranger to seniors leaving his classroom.
No matter what, connections are always made when you have a student in your class for an entire year. Every teacher experiences it because it is quite normal to become equipped with people who surround your everyday life. There is never a dull moment when it comes to teaching because kids will be kids.
“Teaching seniors is the old cliché of a blessing and a curse. Seniors are, by nature, enjoyable to be around while being capable of serious conversations over several topics. They also, for the most part, have ideas about the future and goals they’d like to reach. However, in focusing on the future, they often forget the work of the present,” Daniel Gathman said. “It brings me headaches, so many headaches.”
Gathman teaches a lot of senior classes, so after they leave this week, his classrooms will definitely have some emptiness to them. Quiet enough to hear a pen drop. Six of his seven classes are variations of senior English, and his creative writing class will be losing four of its 12 students, which is definitely sad, but Gathman isn’t worried about it because seeing his students move along through life makes him happy.
“I am always happy to see them move on in life. Only teachers want to be in high school, for the rest of their lives,” Gathman said.
A lot of teachers do communicate with their graduated students because with multi-year bonds it’s common to wanna reach out and stark conversation and listen to their students’ accomplishments through their independent development. Gathman is bad at keeping in touch, but he is always glad to hear updates from his past students.
“I am terrible at keeping in touch with people, not just students, but there are former students who reach out periodically. I am always glad to be updated on their lives and to know I had an impact,” Gathman said.
Teachers make impacts in their students’ lives wether those are good or bad, it will always stick with them, but do students do the same for teachers?
“The diplomatic answer is that every class means something to every teacher, and we all learn from each other. I will stick with the diplomatic answer,” Gathman said.
