Why will we miss everyone so much?

It's Friday.

How many of my colleagues would say, "Wow, wasn't it Sunday a day ago? It's all going by like a blur."

Pretty soon it'll be the weekend and then our article drafts will be due, and we'll be working on our lesson plans, and we'll be hugging each other, carpooling to the airport, and heading off to separate airline gates.

Hooray! We'll be going home to our husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, sons, daughters, dogs, cats, and who knows what else -- pet tarantulas maybe. Our two week experience will be over.

I think, however, that we're going to miss each other a lot. Some of it is because there's a lot of nice people in our group. We have new friends we're just getting to know and then they'll be gone. Some of it is because we were all put through the same intensive process and have the same shared experiences. As Clint Eastwood put it in Heartbreak Ridge, "We sure chewed some of the same ground." After all, how many other people in America were wandering around with tripods and video cameras in 108 degree heat on Thursday? Noel Coward has to revise his famous quote to "Only mad dogs, Englishmen, and Reynolds Institute fellows go out in the noonday sun." [If you thought Rudyard Kipling wrote it, you're not alone.]

For me, there's another reason that we'll miss each other so much -- and it has to do with journalism. When it gets right down to it, we largely operate in isolated bubbles within our school. We're the press and we're different. Going back to our founding fathers, we were sanctioned in our Constitution as the nation's watchdog, which is a lonely calling. We're observers, analysts, and commentators with an ethical code that says we can't be participants.

As soon as we pick up the mantle of even teaching journalism, we're instantly members of the Fraternity of Watchdogs. Sure, we can be friendly with everyone, but we now have a special obligation that transcends friendships to have a piece of us that's apart. We're the observers -- and that's why we'll miss each other so much.

For two weeks in Arizona's sizzling sun [there's my one alliteration for the blogging, Steve], we were with other people who are sharing the same experiences. We have the same problems motivating students to be journalists, and the same problems teaching students that there's more to writing than the five-paragraph essay. Hell, for every other teacher in the world, it's the 5-paragraph essay, but to us, it can't be anything other than the five-paragraph essay because we live by the Code of the AP Style Guiders.

To make a long story short, I'm going to really miss everyone because I don't feel alone here. I'm with people who go through what I go through every school day. Sure, you can say, "We'll always have Facebook," but like Bogey knew deep in his heart, "Here's looking at you, kid" is a lot better than online.

-- Steve Caswell
    Simi Valley High School
    Simi Valley, CA