Um, 2021. We Have To Talk. I Need to Figure Some Things Out with You. There's No Way Possible that the Class of 2001 are Turning 38 this Year.

I'm not sure what triggered the memory, but all of a sudden I realized it's been 20 years since the class of 2001 graduated, and they are now 9 years older, today, than I was when I taught them. This sort of thing absolutely freaks me out. I was a baby teaching babies, yet the law, and a degree with a Masters, allowed me to do so. 

Maybe it was because I was up and working at 6:30 in the morning that I subconsciously triggered all the years that I was on the corner of 1st and Muhammad Ali, room 301, getting ready for the day (at 6:30 in the morning). I started the coffee...Alice arrived soon after. By 7 we would go downstairs to say hi to Mary and Ron, beating all the chaos of others needing the copier, signing in kids, and making noise. Early birds get a quieter worm.

Then, one by one, juniors and seniors would trickle into the room, respecting the quiet time, joining the need for coffee, and beginning a school day anew. 

Phew. 1997-2001, I had the same 45 kids for high school English. It was my 1st 4 years of teaching high school, and they were learning what it means to be a teacher through me. Of course, I had other classes, but this class was mine. Actually, some came, some went, but the core was true (with additions in the junior and senior year that made it even better). 

I guess the phenomenal thing about teaching at a small school, especially a Coalition of Essential Schools facility, is that you really, really do become family. The 2G's and a $1 crew was extra special, though, because I wanted to prove myself worthy and gave them the my all. Poor kids. They also gave me their all. Poor me. A bond was created for life (well, truth be told, it was a Brown School bond that is hard to shake off....Brown is for life. It lives in and through you).

It hit me last night that I was their teacher from age 25 to 28. They were 15-18. It's a ten year difference, really, and I'm wondering how it's ever correct to put someone so young in front of adolescents to form their ideas of adulthood. Dang, I was a kid, too.

I know I bonded with every class, but 2001 shaped me. They gave me a foundation, and all others were held to them as a comparison. There were smarter years, years I gained more grays, tragic years, and years of laughter. That's teaching. But, 2001 were my babies. When they graduated, I went into a 3-day emotional tear-fest (before saying, "Screw them. I'm going to Tokyo for the summer").

Anyone who gets used to the pattern of 9th grade to 12th grade understands there's a lot going on really quickly. It's a quirky, thought-provoking, deeply intellectual, very emotional period of time. And for these kids, all 4 years I was there. They were there. It became a way of thinking and knowing.

I guess I gave up doing the math...being obsessed that they were my first freshman class carried to the senior year. These screwballs are now approaching 40. There's no way that is possible. And they cannot be 38 this year. There's no way it's the 20th reunion. 

Oh, but they are. And, in true Brown School form, I hear from them all the time. It's family.

I know they are adults, now, have houses, are raising kids, are full into their careers, but I'm still celebrating first kisses, gossip, driver's licenses, sporting events, failed quizzes, writing, note passing, discovery of music, doubt of the world, optimism of the world, and pure, authentic youth. 

Gosh. It goes fast. It's almost too much to think about. My pond. My Frog friends. All adults now. Just hoping the Great Whatever delivers them to an epiphany like I'm having this morning. It truly is surreal. God only knows what I'd be without them.