I suppose many jobs have something of an annual cycle about them - but in few is it as marked as in education. Today is the last day of the semester, and I've just walked across the university concourse where students who have just finished their final exams are partying, paying for fairground rides and generally getting in the mood for a good celebration. I stopped to talk to a student I have taught: apart from seeing her at graduation events in a month's time I will probably never see her again. Yet a semester ago she was a frequent visitor to my room for advice about her project.
I have recently done a number of achievement ceremonies for school children now taking GCSEs or A levels who have been working with us on aspiration raising activities. The teachers at some of these have been almost in tears at seeing the departure of their students for the next stage of their education, or as they enter a chosen career. I'm not in tears, but the end of the academic teaching year does mark the passing of time and the departure of another cohort. And with that comes the departure of students that one has got to know - who have come up with interesting ideas in seminars, who have challenged my understanding of the things I am trying to help them to learn, and who have shown me how to present ideas in different and novel ways. Academics learn a lot from their students - possibly more than many of them realise.
And in my position, the end of the teaching year also brings shortly afterwards the goodbyes to the Student Union officers with whom I work closely during the year.
So it's a reflective time of year. I'm not whether those in other jobs with an annual cycle to them - the snowplough driver, the beach lifeguard, or garden centre employees - get the same feelings. I suspect not, because our lives as academics give us closer insights into the thoughts, projects and ideas of others than is the case in many other jobs.
I have recently done a number of achievement ceremonies for school children now taking GCSEs or A levels who have been working with us on aspiration raising activities. The teachers at some of these have been almost in tears at seeing the departure of their students for the next stage of their education, or as they enter a chosen career. I'm not in tears, but the end of the academic teaching year does mark the passing of time and the departure of another cohort. And with that comes the departure of students that one has got to know - who have come up with interesting ideas in seminars, who have challenged my understanding of the things I am trying to help them to learn, and who have shown me how to present ideas in different and novel ways. Academics learn a lot from their students - possibly more than many of them realise.
And in my position, the end of the teaching year also brings shortly afterwards the goodbyes to the Student Union officers with whom I work closely during the year.
So it's a reflective time of year. I'm not whether those in other jobs with an annual cycle to them - the snowplough driver, the beach lifeguard, or garden centre employees - get the same feelings. I suspect not, because our lives as academics give us closer insights into the thoughts, projects and ideas of others than is the case in many other jobs.
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