Fifty Ways to Leave Your Classroom

Get on the Bus Gus by Mechelle Gilford circa 2024, For two years, I stood at my classroom window and watched my students run for the buses. I photographed them every afternoon — over two hundred times. Not because any single moment was remarkable. Because all of them were. 

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Classroom

Just slip out the back, Jack. Hop on the bus, Gus.

Don’t wait for the bell, 

just go. 

Tuck in your chin 

and aim for yellow.

There’s a science to this: 

the angle of the backpack, 

the reading of the crowd, 

knowing which gap to take 

before it closes.

Nobody taught them this. 

Nobody had to.

Elbows leading, 

backpacks forgotten in the rush, 

feet finding 

the exact geometry of going home. 

Which turns out to be 

the same for everyone: 

chin down, 

aim for yellow, 

run.

What we carry home 

is never just the books.

The rowed buses idle,

patient and gold and waiting,

while the kids become 

pure motion, 

pure velocity, 

pure Friday afternoon.

And my magnificent kids 

are already out the door, 

already gone,

fifty ways, every single one of them right,

before I even 

looked up.