teacher treasures

This past week, I tackled a closet that I have been ignoring for  a while. It was the hall closet and had seemed to become a catch all for everything. I kept the door closed, what is out of sight was out of mind, well sort of ....I knew it was there and needed to quit dreading it and just clean it out. The thing about cleaning out something means there's probably going to be a larger mess before we get to the clean and orderly. AND so it was, it's hard to believe that such a small closet could hold that much stuff. 

I found a lot of junk that needed to go away, but I found an odd little treasure as well. In the bottom of the closet under some boxes and stuff I found  a file folder. I thought that it was something I had used when I sold Southern Living at Home, but I opened it and realized it was my file folder that I used the last year I taught High School Literature. I opened it, to see students' names for each of the files. My oldest, Zach, was one of those students that year. In each folder there was one lone assigment that had not been picked up by the students. It was dated January of '09, so why I still had it was amazing to me. The assignment was called Perfect mate. IT was as assignment given to the students when we were studying Romeo and Juliet. On one side the students described physical and personality traits that they desired in a future mate, They also had a space provided to guess what qualities they thought their parents would desire for them. On the back side, of the page, the parents were asked to do the same. 

This was the last year that I taught high school Literature, so still having these was a treat to find. Many of the students have already found their mate, or they are engaged, and some have children. It was neat to see what they wrote and what their parents wrote all those years ago.
When I read Zach's, I still have the same desires in a mate for him, and he still agrees with what he wrote on his paper back when he was in the 11th grade. 

One of my students said she desired to marry a cowboy, with a job and a truck. I am friends with this former student on facebook, and from what I can tell...she did marry someone with those qualifications. Reading all the qualifications from students and parents alike was so thrilling all these years later.

I am glad that I cleaned out the closet, not only did I clear out some trash, make a garage sale pile, organize my closet, but I was rewarded with this little treasure from my former students. I had the best students of all time back then.