Reflections on Winnie the Pooh Day

Today was yet another annual Winnie the Pooh Day in Jim Smith's AP Calculus class at Williams High School.

Of course, it's been two years since my Winnie the Pooh Day, as I graduated in 2004, but today was my brother's Winnie the Pooh Day, and so I have been inspired to reflect on mine.

What is Winnie the Pooh Day, then? Each year, on the last day of classes at Williams High School, when the AP Calculus class meets for the last time, Mr. Smith (who is famous around these parts for his relentless nature, his odd sense of humor, and his bow ties) teaches each calculus class the last lesson, in which he commends them to the world on the other side of the bridge. Graduation is a week and a half away still, but this last day of classes is what truly marks the moment in which he must let go of the students (most of whom he has had for two years) so they can continue. And the primary source material for this last chapter in his educational relationship with these students is, fittingly, the last chapter of A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh." It is an emotional occasion: thoughts about growing up, Mr. Smith (who hereunto had seemed like such an ice man) typically cries, the graduating AP Calculus students present Mr. Smith with a picture of their class to hang on the wall next to all the other students he's shepherded.

It's an odd tradition, isn't it? A calculus teacher hanging pictures of his of classes on the wall and crying when they leave? Perhaps we would expect this from drama and music and dance teachers, growing emotional as an artistic relationship must go in a different direction, hanging pictures on the wall from concerts and stage productions. But a calculus teacher? Furthermore, I'm a music major. I owe so much of where I have been able to get in my career thus far to the musicians who have shaped me and loved me and taught me, but here I am on this day reflecting on the wisdom of my calculus teacher. And I hardly remember a blessed things about calculus.

How strange it is to mark the passing of time. How strange to hear my brother speak of Winnie the Pooh Day and to be floored by the fact that already two years have passed since I occcupied his proverbial shoes. How frightening to watch things be born and grow and fade so quickly. And how compelling that the feelings of my Winnie the Pooh Day, now two years ago, are so well etched in my memory that writing this post makes my heart turn in a way that is both something of the past and something so familiar.

I've always been a complete wimp in so many ways. Mr. Holland's Opus pretty consistently brings tears to my eyes; so does at least every other church service I attend; so does that scene in Almost Famous where a spontaneous sing-along of "Tiny Dancer" brings reconciliation when nothing else could. But I find more and more, lately, that things are so intense (and often so beautiful) that tears form in the corners of my eyes - and I am often so embarrassed! I nearly cried at an NPR story about piano lessons one time! Come on!

But as I sit here today and reflect on Winnie the Pooh Day, I think about how the end of each year finds a few tears in the eyes of the famous Mr. Smith, the calculus teacher who pushed us so hard, who made us so angry, who intimidated us so powerfully. And I laugh at myself for being such a baby, but I wonder if these tears are revelatory in the truest and most powerful sense of the word. I wonder if they aren't the perfect way to help us keep track of time.