They’re graduating

Our seniors. My advisory. They’re graduating. On June 3. Tomorrow.

We’ve spent lots of time together, building this school. We’ve spent one and a half hours together every week for the last four years, plus 10 minutes every morning. We’ve learned together and grown together. When we first started together, we came from all over – from Kennebunk to Topsham to Lewiston and everywhere in between. One of us even came from Owl’s Head. Some of us knew each other, but mostly we didn’t. It was awkward.

I’ve worked with other advisory groups in the past, but they knew each other. They lived in the same town, or at least in the same local district. This time it was different. Would my same, silly “get to know you” games work? Which, of course, in the past had been more for me than for them. Why not try, anyway?

So, I explained the rules of my silly name game. You will introduce yourself using an adjective that begins with the same letter as your name. I modeled what I meant: “I’m perfect Pam.” Then we’ll go around the circle and you have to name everyone before you and then yourself. They looked at me funny. They wanted to build the furniture. I told them that we needed to know each other’s names before we could try building IKEA furniture together. They humored me and played my game, even though they didn’t quite get it and thought it was stupid (they tell me now). And we built some furniture. That was in September of 2013. Two days after receiving a building occupancy permit.

Since that time we’ve had lots of conversations. About important things that were happening in the world, about decisions that we needed to make at school, about nothing in particular. We laughed and played games and had “TED Talk Tuesday” and played “Dancing Queen” whenever someone turned 17. We built our community. We became “PRawson and the Funky Bunch.”

And now they’re graduating.

So, thank you, for being the Funky Bunch: Awesome Aidan, Brianna Butterfly, Brilliant Ben, Eccentric Eddie, Ethan “Wheat Thin”, Evil Eli, Glitterific Gracelyn, Goofy Gabe, Ironic Irial, Jazzy Jenna, Loopy Lizzie, Marvelous Maddy, Nick (who likes chips), Novel Nicholas, Sassy Seham, Tenacious Tucker, and Terrible Theo (who hates mayo).

Remember that you built more than just a school. You built a very special community.