countdown on

In 7.5 days, my babies are off, off and away. (Can I get a not a moment too soon?) This is the first class in a few years, though, that I feel emotional about letting go of. They are prickly, difficult, LOUD, irrepressible. I love them. I can't wait to see them go. I will miss them.

One of my kids, in his spare time, wrote a genius parody of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," entitled "Abalone." Even though we have not yet logged 100 percent making the monthly AR goal, this is by far the most literary class I've ever taught. They consume - and are consumed by - books. I would never say I rue the day I put Alice in this boy's hands, but I will say I've not had five minutes' peace since then. He wants every Victorian reference and pun explained, every mathematical problem hashed out, every portmanteau dissected. He seriously thinks nothing of asking, in the middle of a math lesson, "What does a muchness look like?"

I will miss this bunch so much. Every ill-timed giggle, every under-the-breath tattletale, every off-key screech. The coming year will be so ... quiet.

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I want this never to happen to my students. I also want someone to tell them that gay is not, as Dr. Dorothy Espelage says, an attack on someone's masculinity, despite prepubescent and overgrown boys' proclivity to use it as such. And that whore and lesbian do not belong in the same category of attack, because one is an insult and the other should not be. I want them to have good guidance counselors, excellent teachers, and top-notch parents. And if they should slip through a crack one day, and then another and maybe another, I want them to never lose sight of the knowledge that someone cares about them.

As they say, what a world ...