The first year I returned to teaching after a 13-year hiatus to raise my own children was a difficult one. Going from four kids to 32 sixth-graders was a shock. I sat in my classroom after school and cried many days. However, when the end of the year came near, I found it very difficult to give these kids up. They would be going to another school, and I wouldn't even get to see them in the hallways the next school year. As we hugged and said our teary-eyed goodbyes that last day of school, I wondered how I would ever learn to love another group of kids as much as I loved my sixth-graders.

I was assigned to a third-grade class the next school year, and, to my surprise, enjoyed the students very much, and again became very emotional as I passed them along to the fourth grade, and wished them each a happy summer break. Evidently I'm a very slow learner, because it took me about four years to figure out that each group of students I had became my favorite group. What I've come to learn over the past 15 years is that it's nearly impossible to serve a group of children daily for a full school year without falling in love with them. — Maureen Robison, Jackling Elementary School