My Real Life

I spent last Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C. with 330 8th graders.

It was a blast.

No lie.

We take the 8th graders to D.C. year after year and it is always so much fun, but it is also a wonderful time for us to create special memories with the kids before they leave us for high school.

330 kids is a lot of children.

Everywhere we go, in D.C., people comment on the size of our group.

And yet, they are also usually the best behaved group at any attraction we visit.

It’s such a blend of kids…homeless with millionaires, jocks with brains, punks with preps.

And it works.

It’s wonderful to see the sights through their eyes.

They marvel at things to which I have long since become immune.

They tear up and show emotion at the same things that make me weep.

The Newseum has a special exhibit on the assassination of JFK, and as I stood and watched the film describing the news coverage surrounding the assassination, I snuck peeks at the faces of my students and they were rapt.

Watching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, my students were silent and respectful and full of awe.

Seeing the sheer amount of names on the wall at the Vietnam Memorial or witnessing the neverending sea of tombstones at Arlington, you could see the human cost of war suddenly becoming real to their young minds.

It’s a trip I have only missed twice since coming to this school…while on maternity leave with Baby and while on maternity leave with Tiny.

And as glad as I was to be home with my babies, a part of me definitely ached to be on the trip with my colleagues and students.

The D.C. trip is a lot of work and a lot of responsibility.

But there are some things in life that are worth the effort.

My job, my students…definitely worth the effort.