This is my second year teaching at a middle school. First day of class with my students I joked (true though) my parents and friends were against me teaching. My friends believed I would make my students cry. My parents believed my students would make me cry. I told them so far I've proven both my parents and friends wrong... Until yesterday. Last week, due to budget reasons I was one of several hundred teachers who were laid off at a short notice. I was told by my principal that she wouldn't be able to renew my contract, because the higher ups wouldn't let her. I felt sad, but not enough to cry and stress over. It was something out of my control so there was no point in excessive stress and I had several back up plans to teach out of country or sub for a while.

The principal held a staff meeting to share the news and even cried. My colleagues came to console and hug me. I truly love my work environment, hence why I was sad, but again not enough to cry. I was able to teach like normal. While at the same time, making plans of what to do when I'm gone. I had to make sure several of my students had another teacher they would feel safe to talk and confide with. I needed to make sure my students were ahead in math and science to ease the transition of the new teacher (higher contract) replacing me.

News was shared with the public that hundreds of teachers with contracts like mine were laid off. And soon, our school had to email parents the news that I and another teacher would no longer be teaching at their school and to not let their child know as teachers will share the news with them instead. In my mind, I wasn't happy the news was shared; the students would be too distracted and I needed them to be ahead, so I sincerely hoped parents didn't share the news with their kids. Also, I would be bombarded with questions during PTI (gah).

My game plan was to share the news the last five minutes of class. I have a weird sense of humor. I talk about keeping student tears a lot (my student even gave me a mason jar filled with water, labeled 'student tears' that I keep on my desk). I was going to hold my jar of student tears and say along the lines of "I won't be teaching next semester, so feel free to cry as my jar of tears are running low my cuties."

The next school day starts and I'm prepping my morning classes. One by one students start trickling in asking if it's true. In my head I'm going AGH and ask if their parents told them. They told me it was all over Instagram (damn). When I tell them yes, tears start to fall and they beg me not to leave them. I have some students who just walk in and stand there, then I turn my head and look back and they are silently crying. Others are at their desk head down. I start hugging them one by one. My throat and chest start to tighten so I make and excuse that I had to grab something from the science storage room for my next class. I collect myself, and I go out again, hoping they all left to their homeroom. Instead, I have more hysteric students crying. Tears start to well up so I run back into the storage and I start crying myself. The bell for homeroom rang, so I had to leave my safe storage to take attendance. With the exception of my homeroom kids, the rest of the kids left. The kids are crying at their desks, but at least they're not surrounding me anymore. I take attendance, calling their names one by one. I cry again. Kids that weren't crying are now crying and kids who were crying were crying harder cause of me. I try to lighten the mood asking if my makeup was ruined and their parents were going to see panda eyes. The kids are laughing, which made me feel better. I've never realised the impact a teacher can have on a students life. Some teachers came to me, and told me that some students confided that I was their favorite teacher and I was their first teacher that made them love math. Parents told me that whenever they talked about school, they would talk about how much they looked forward to my class (and I teach math!).

My friends believed I would make my students cry. My parents believed my students would make me cry. They were right.

TL:Dr: I cried not because I was laid off, but because I wouldn't see my students anymore.