See cat, see empty bag

I've been putting off posting this here because I've been putting off breaking the news to my students, but as one domino has fallen today, the other naturally follows. I will be leaving my current school--and Providence, Rhode Island--this June. This was a decision that Lauren and I made a month or so ago and which I told my administration and colleagues about immediately, but for some reason it was difficult to know how to break the news to my students.

The whole thing was a difficult decision. I like the school where I'm teaching--I like my colleagues, I like my administrators, I like my students. I like Providence: it's a great little city. I value the friendships that I started to form here outside of school as well, largely from the two choirs in which I sing. There's a heck of a lot to like here, a heck of a lot to keep me here.

In fact, that was my intention, to stay here for the foreseeable future, but then the headmaster at old Pencey Prep, where I began my high school teaching career and spent its first five years, came calling with job offers for both me and Lauren. We had difficult decisions to make. I suppose the main factors which moved us to accept the job there were

1. Closer proximity to our families: instead of 12 hours--which easily becomes 13 or more hours thanks to unpredictable traffic over that stretch--we'll be about 2 1/2 hours from Lauren's folks and 3 1/2 to my mom's. Particularly as we contemplate starting a family, that becomes even more important to us than it would otherwise be.
2. Lauren's daily commute of an hour each way (or 7 1/2 in wicked bad snowstorms) is tough on her. Compare that to the three-minute walk we'll each have.
3. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to teach music again. I've learned a lot these last two years being a full-time English teacher, especially surrounded by such talented colleagues, and so I'm also glad that I'll mostly be teaching English, but it's nice to branch out and have some variety, getting to direct a couple choral groups again. The flip side is that I'll miss singing with choral groups as I've been able to do here.
4. Great friends: when I left Pencey Prep, I was struck hard on the day of the move by what a wonderful group of friends I had made in the course of those five years. I was struck again when it came time to assemble my wedding party and realized that these were guys I wanted to serve as my groomsmen and even as my officiants. I've missed being around them these past two years and I'll be glad to return to them

Still, that doesn't mean I'm leaving without mixed feelings, for the friendships that have started to develop but will undoubtedly be cut short, for the wonderful choral groups I've enjoyed singing with, for the wonderfully promising students I've been privileged to work with in every facet of my job from the tennis courts to the classroom to my homeroom to the games club, for the talented and committed colleagues I've been fortunate to work with and learn from. There are so many people here who I will miss and regret that I did not have more time to spend with them.

So it goes, though. In the modern era, it's what we do, picking up and moving across broad swaths of the country: it's how I ended up here in the first place, following Lauren. It's hard, though, because we weren't really made for such things. Until the modern era, fate would plunk most of us down in a spot and we'd mostly stay there for our entire lives. We'd set down roots, we'd build communities. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, it's been tough for me to tell my students. I think I said this when I left Pencey, but it's also strange as a teacher, particularly in my first job. Up to that point, my tenure at a place had very narrowly proscribed boundaries. I finished 6th grade, I moved to the junior high. I finished 8th grade, I went to high school. I finished 12th grade and went to college. Four years later, like clockwork, I was plunked out into "the real world," or would have been if I hadn't fled into graduate school. Two years later, coursework done, I moved on again and took my first job. Those jobs, though, no longer have a set time frame. We could stay at a school our entire working lives and no one would look askance at that. Of course, it's no longer quite the norm it once was, particularly not in the independent school world, where we're not bound by state systems of certification or state retirement systems or any such things. Still, students tend to have an assumption that their teachers one year will still be their teachers next year, even if they're not their teachers. We'll still be around is the point, so it feels strange when we move on, and it's just about as strange for us teachers to move on. 

But we do. For one reason and another, we do. It doesn't make it easy to say goodbye, though. 

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