Top 5 Trivial but Amazing Things I'll Miss About Working in a Classroom

5 - DECORATING IT

That's right. There's something so fun and special about being given a domain (a kingdom, if you will) and decorating it as you like. I was always jealous of the English teachers and their fabulous twinkle lights and Shakespearean books and pages strewn about the wall. At my school, the freshman English teacher had fake ivy woven around the hanging ceiling lights, and I always thought that was so cool.

My room, affectionately known as the dungeon due to its lack of windows and it being so far underground that it is the literal location for tornado emergencies, has a different vibe. I collaged our newsmagazine covers along the giant half pillars that stuck out of the walls. I began a yearbook cover timeline at the top of the ceiling, and I hope to see that stretch around the room one day. I had these old posters I won at a student advertising competition that were a visual representation of Photoshop and Illustrator, which I framed and hung up.

I taped pictures to the front and back of my door so that something could be seen whether or not it was open or closed. I printed out memes or silly photos of my student staff members at Prom or in pep assemblies, and I'd paste them all over.

Once, for no reason whatsoever, I received tons of posters and bookmarks with singer Benson Boone's face all over them in the mail (presumably, his marketing team decided to mail these all over the country to journalism program advisors?) and we taped them behind computers or up on the walls where they still hang today.

Decorating your classroom is a strange mix of aesthetics and functionality. You work to make your space your own, but also make it work for the hundreds of kids you might see in a day. I have a college best friend who always said I had a talent for what she called "nesting," or making spaces feel like your own. Doing that in a classroom is a bit different from doing it in an office or cubicle, and I'll miss it.

4 - FINDERS KEEPERS

I'm not saying I stole from teenagers, I'm just saying they're less responsible about keeping track of things like sweatshirts, notebooks, pens, SD cards, chargers, lotions, and other trinkets. I let items live in my classroom for ages. I mean actual months. A perfectly nice and cozy sweatshirt might sit draped over a chair in the room with more than ample time for its owner to come and claim it.

So no, I don't steal from kids, but there is a statute of limitations of allotted time before it officially becomes mine. Through this very rational technique, I have acquired some of my favorite bullet journals, gel pens, a new laptop charger for public shared use, and yes, even a very nice and comfy oversized sweatshirt that I do wear often.

I feel like solid items like this just simply aren't left behind in a regular office setting. I am bummed for that but I will also be glad not to pick up trash, energy drink cans, old lip glosses and other more gross things the teenagers leave behind and I find in the classroom.

3 - KEEPING THE DOOR OPEN

There's that meme that comes from the opening scene of Monsters, Inc. where the audience realizes the scare we just witnessed was actually a training module and then the monster gets evaluated. You might know it. It starts with the manager playing back the scare and saying

"Leaving the door open is the worst mistake any employee can make because...?"

"Um, it could let in a draft?"

Then the big boss, Mr. Waternoose, comes in out of the darkness on all eight crabby legs and yells.

"YOU COULD LET IN A CHILD!"

This has become a popular joke among teachers, who, when in need of a tiny moment of peace, must absolutely shut the door so as not to let in a child.

For me, this was a tough task, if only because I had two doors as well as a fourth-hour class that let out during a double lunch shift. Before my class was even over, I'd already have seniors walking in with their lunches and gathering on the couch to come hang out with the students who just finished class in my room.

I would often simply work at my desk (merely ten feet from the kids) while they chatted and ate. I overheard everything, from anxieties over college and anatomy tests to Winter Formal date drama and frustrations with coaches or game results in sports. I listened in the background and heard these young women chit-chat, laugh together, mourn together, and grow up together.

Along the way, I also learned slang terms that made me feel like an actual fossil. But that's okay. It was enough to be a fly on the wall and have a space where I could work and coexist with students who felt safe and welcomed enough to make their own community in my classroom every year in new and unique ways.

2 - WHITEBOARD DRAWINGS

This one doesn't just happen in my own classroom, but around the entire school. I love it. Kids are so creative and funny.

From floppy goopy characters worshipping a giant skull to full renderings of Rick from "Rick and Morty" to sea monsters and self-portraits and anime characters, as well as supportive little messages - a blank whiteboard in a school is really just a giant canvas to a teenager.

I once walked by a whiteboard in the atrium after a Spirit Week event, and someone had drawn out the meme where there are multiple Spider-Man characters all pointing to one another with the caption "Teachers when their students dress like them," because that was the theme for the day.

It was truly a masterpiece.

Even though I sometimes mourn the expo markers that probably died in the creation of the art (because they're always somehow desperate for ink when I actually need to use them for class), I loved walking around the school and uncovering its artful mysteries wherever I walked.

1 - WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK

Some may have noticed that I worked with high school-aged kids, and I continue to call them kids. They are! They have so much pressure on them sometimes, and some of them have jobs or internships or have already traveled more of the world than I have, but in the end, they are kids.

They're growing into young adults, sure, but acknowledging this, their growing need for independence and the fact that they're also still just kids opens the door for whimsy.

In some of my last days in the classroom, I'd come in to work and there would already be a group in the computer lab with all the lights turned off, working from only the glow of their computers, and they'd be watching movies in the background while they trucked along.

They chose films like "The Princess Diaries," "Beauty and the Beast," or "Lilo and Stitch." Once, they all yelled out, "Miss Val! Can we watch some Barbie movies?!" and I found myself searching YouTube for a playlist of Mermaid Barbie or other little plots and free movies online. They'd edit spreads and copy while debating if "Barbie Princess Charm School" was better than "The Princess and the Pauper."

It is one of the great joys of teaching to give in to that childlike wonder. To listen to the kids when their enthusiasm kicks in and to lean into the nostalgia of those competing truths: they're kids who are growing into young adults. Right before your eyes. Right in the middle of your classroom.