"You're More of a Joke-y Teacher"

I've sent hundreds of kids off into the world from the Woodland Park Cooperative School. For most of them, I was their first and only teacher, which meant that, for better or worse, I'd had both the responsibility and opportunity to shape children's expectations for what's to come. Some of that was conscious, like our curriculum of questioning authority, but most was just an unconscious manifestation of my personality and the pedagogy I've been developing over decades.I often say that after my wife and daughter, all of my best friends are five-years-old. After all, these are the people with whom I've been hanging out, daily, for the better part of three years. We'd been together through highs and lows, made life stories together, shared inside jokes, and trusted one another: the stuff from which best friends are made. That said, I know the friendship will fade, at least from their side, once they've moved on, but I hope the feeling of that relationship stays with them as they…