Where do closed schools go?

So, it's official. Brooklyn Comprehensive is no more.

The last graduation ceremony was a little over a week ago, at which a graduate from over ten years ago praised one of our finest teachers for making him the lawyer he is today.

In kitchens, bedrooms, cars, on couches and maybe even in someone's dreams this early afternoon, someone is mentioning, "oh yeah, I heard about that," that their high school closed. I can guarantee to a student he/she isn't happy. But, they feel, as they felt before they walked through our doors, powerless and completely accustomed to disappointment. It took a long time to break them of that feeling and I'm sure not very long for it to be re-instilled by a government agency, a disturbing and unfeeling neighbor, boss, relative, spouse or side of themselves. It's inevitable. The trick was for us to teach them how to re-instill in themselves the flame of hope. I know several of my colleagues were excellent at this.

As I don't know how they feel about appearing on the great white way of the blogosphere, I'll just describe the ways they did --
--a vivacious, youthful history teacher, with the eternal sex appeal of a knowing Jewish mother
pushed the kids to say what they meant and to realize that they could understand history because it just meant paying attention to what was happening around them and why it happened and TAKING NOTES in class.
--a furiously bright and stone cold vixen of an English Teacher told them she would not believe one stereotype or let them stereotype her and that they worked from a clean hard-nosed slate together to make themselves better -- both of them. Not a question in the world she couldn't make as clear as a tree branch and she taught them to carve their essays upward from sentence to paragraph to connected paragraphs to completed essay. Kids came back after school to make their work better and better.
--a handsome musician with words asked the kinds of questions anyone could take hours answering and then taught the students to listen to language as is if it were music. They learned to read hard books by listening to them read. And they liked them

There were more, and yes, those were my friends, but I could sit here and type for days.

There were endless frustrations. Kids came to school one day and disappeared for weeks. The brighter the kid, the less consistent and the more problems. The weaker, the more consistent, but the more in need of services that we often didn't have -- but, at least, you could work with th student and improvise. You could work with memory. I have to admit that there were certain kids I longed to see more than the kids I did see, but I was lucky because I worked in a place where it was rare that I really didn't want to see someone, though sure there were a few. More people didn't want to see me, I think.

The school will only really be closed to those people -- the ones who never want to see or think of any of us anymore.