It's been a minute since I've contributed anything to this blog page. I just never had the urge to write anything over the course of the 2019-20 school year. And yet, it seems like I just did this. Twice. This is a bitter-sweet post. It's an ode to a class of students that I love and feel like I didn't get enough time with. It's a continuation of the new theme of this blog in general, as it becomes a vast collection of my sappy thoughts that I cannot say in person. I mean, with quarantine and social distancing and online school for the remainder of the year, I can't say ANYTHING in person, but I did try to put this one into a video message and failed. So I guess this is the most fitting medium to share some pretty significant happenings in my life and all the feelings and consequences associated with it. Next year I won't be back at Waunakee Community Middle School. Most of you know I live in DeForest and my own kids attend DeForest schools, and I am taking a position at DeForest Area Middle School. It's not a decision I took lightly. It also doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about Waunakee or the students and staff I spent the last two years with. It is a family decision that allows me to invest my energy more fully into the community I live in, be on a common schedule with my kids, and opens up more possibilities for coaching and advising extracurricular groups. That's it. It's me, not the Kee. I will always look back on my time at Waunakee fondly, and I hope that the relationships I built over two years continue to grow. After all, DeForest and Waunakee interact very regularly as neighbors and rivals, so hopefully this is not goodbye for good.
When I announced I was leaving Beloit Turner, my students and I were able to really take the last few weeks of school and embrace the opportunity to enjoy each other's presence. We had so much fun the last few weeks of that year, and I have such great memories of our track season, filming our student news broadcasts, our last geography projects, end-of-year kickball game and awards ceremonies.
Now I feel like we are being robbed of that opportunity, and it makes me feel like I am abandoning you. Having no face-to-face school for the rest of this year now gives me a tremendous sense that I've let you down. A feeling that I am bailing out in an improper way. I know there are circumstances WAY beyond my control and nobody could have foreseen how this year would end back in the fall, but it doesn't change that constant gnawing in my gut every time I think about next fall. I haven't seen any of you in person since the first half of March. I haven't seen some of you at all since then, not even in video conferencing format. Early in the Learn@Home process, I looked ahead optimistically to next fall and a reunion of sorts. Of course I knew the class of 2025 would be on to 8th grade and you wouldn't actually be enrolled in my class, but I would be seeing you again and it was going to be fun. I wouldn't have even minded an influx of Class of '25 kids in my WYN sessions. And speaking of the Class of '25, I am starting to realize this post is mostly directed at you. By this point I feel like it's an open letter to everyone in the class. I really need to take some time to acknowledge just how fully robbed I feel by missing over a quarter of our year together and not having a chance to reunite next year. No disrespect to any other classes I've ever had... nothing can change how I feel about any of you (especially you, Turner Class of '21). However, the Waunakee Class of '25 is definitely a personal favorite. Quickly, not fully complete, and in no particular order, I love and will miss: The "Table of Death", Beekeeper by RASA, the crinkle of wrappers and way-too-noisy chewing of Nutrition Break... and even the Pringles... having WYN session taken over by Myla, new heads showing up with the world leaders on the back wall, dodgeball, Jungle Doors, 65!, loud marches to the LMTC, Animal Farm (and their lack of opposable thumbs), recess football, being on the girl's soccer team at Keva, photoshopped Jedi pictures and currency of Mrs. Loftus and I, Win The Whitehouse, blueberry pie, and working on the Hot Shower parody while knowing every single session that we would need more time to finish it. Speaking of... it is getting close to being finished, I promise. I am very thankful we had the opportunity to go on our field trip and have our Quizziz tournament against the other classes right before break. That still doesn't take away the sting of missing the end of year festivities. Everyone that's been asking what we're going to do about #classcomp champions and your Sevie Nation Army rankings already knows I don't have a good solution for how to approach the end of the year. All I know is that I'm struggling at this point of the transition. It is harder than I imagined to move on in the midst of this pandemic. Any sense of normalcy has already been stripped, and I can't fall back on any of those fun things usually associated with the end of the year to bring any comfort or closure to it all. If you've seen my homemade yearbooks from the last few years, you know how much I cherish them and how special that tradition is to me. This year there is really no opportunity to make a yearbook in the same way. I will not have a traditional #classcomp champions photo to post with the winners of previous years. I will not have an album's worth of photos from the last day of school to put on Instagram. I won't be able to hand out any goofy award certificates to any of you. We won't have one last recess football game... And I don't know how to replace or replicate ANY of it. And it sucks. It REALLY sucks. So I guess what I ask as we move forward into the last few weeks of the academic year is to help me do what we can. I want to celebrate our year. I want to celebrate you sticking with me through virtual learning. I want to celebrate all the great times we had before our world was turned upside down. I want to leave knowing we did everything we could to enjoy each other's company any way we knew how. Beyond that, I hope to still see you around when all of our restrictions lift. Maybe it will be at a middle school track meet, maybe in the crowd at a Varsity basketball game, maybe randomly out at a restaurant like that one time I saw Isabelle at Aranda's. I've told you before and I'll tell you again. I love you guys... I love you in an "I genuinely care about your well being" kind of way. I will still love you guys next year and when you graduate. I will miss you tremendously and wish you the best of luck next year and in high school. Thanks for a fantastic two years. -Mr. Honish
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AuthorJohn Honish: Archives
June 2021
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