Empty nests

Seventeen days, thirteen being school days, until the 2023 seniors graduate. Students are getting antsy counting down the minutes until they walk across the stage with their diplomas in hand, opening their arms to the future and leaving New Ulm High School in the past.

Teachers are having a hard time keeping students on track but there’s the increasingly prominent silver lining of the fact that seniors will be gone with their last school day being May 17, before graduating on May 19, narrowing the number of students that they will have to keep occupied while finals are coming fast around the corner.

One such class is Literature of Diversity, which focuses on reading books about different perspectives of life written by various authors, including Trevor Noah and Sandra Cisneros. The class has read four books and three short stories combined. Usually, while reading, they’ll be assigned worksheets as extra credit or short quizzes with bonus questions as an incentive to read. After reading, they typically have a project with the book and then a test. Ms. Nelson’s sixth-hour Literature of Diversity class suddenly realized that we were all seniors halfway into the semester when Nelson asked if there were any underclassmen in the room. After realizing there weren’t, Nelson seemed surprised, and a student mentioned that she would have an “extra prep period.” The class erupted into laughter.

After thinking about Nelson having an empty classroom for a week, thoughts turned to pondering what it would be like not to have her routine once the seniors are finished and have some free time. “What free time?” Nelson joked. “I mean, I probably haven’t had an all-senior class in, I don’t know, ten or twelve years. So I’ll honestly probably take the time to not only prepare for the other finals coming up but also organize and reorganize my room.”, Nelson said.

“I am excited for you guys. I’m glad that COVID, in theory, has calmed down. I’m glad that you all get to experience the ‘normal’ senior year that past seniors, unfortunately, didn’t get to have with prom, graduation, or interaction with each other altogether. I think it’s hard watching you guys over the past few years with those of us that watch you walk by all the time to not getting to see you guys at all, but it’s good”, Nelson said. “I’m excited to see what you all are going to do, but it is hard to see you all leave.”

Nelson’s class only has one more book to read until the seniors’ semester ends, and they leave the high school, creating room for the upcoming class where the cycle starts again.