I WILL stuff my gown.

Cue the "Lion King" music because it's the circle of life; as an educator, I have completed my first circle. My freshmen are graduating this Saturday.

They weren't the smartest class, the most creative class, or the kindest class, but they were mine. My freshmen, the students who were the freshmen when I starting teaching at my school. My babies, as one of them told me a couple of weeks ago. "Mrs. S, we're your babies!" she said with a little tear.

I may get really, really angry with my students sometimes, but I also get really, really attached to them. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve; some teachers and staff have this graceful ability to keep their distance and avoid showing their sadness at losing a group of kids every year. Each year, I watch the seniors graduate, get a little choked up during the slideshow when I see their baby pictures, but I pull it together by the time the recessional is played. I think this year will be different. So many of these kids started out as squirrelly pipsqueaks in my Art Exploration class, only to advance through my classes to become some of my best artists or yearbook staffers. I am truly sad to see them go, and I don't know what it will be like to not see them next year.

Some of these kids have made big mistakes. Huge, life-altering mistakes, ones that have the potential to throw them off-track. I am scared to watch them leave us next week, to see if they will keep making the scary, dangerous mistakes that have caused such harm already.

But, some of these kids have done the right thing, and have made me so very proud to know them and watch them grow, and watch them toss their flimsy cardboard hats into the air.

The robes that the teachers wear in the ceremony are the awesome graduate-degree-style robes that have the funny sleeves with a hidey-hole in them. Along with tasty snacks, I will be stuffing a few tissues into those holes because, folks, here come the waterworks. But not during "Pomp and Circumstance", because dammit, I hate that song.