The last days. What children carry out of the school year.

My son's last day of school this year was a Wednesday. He came home with a cardboard box of the year's accumulation: a clay pot, a piece of writing he was proud of, some friendship bracelets that had survived the term, and a drawing of a spaceship he'd forgotten making. He put everything on the kitchen table and looked at it for a long time. Then he said: it was a good year.

I asked what made it good. He thought seriously. He said: I learned to make the clay pot. I got better at long division. I became better friends with Tom. And Mrs Chen was really good at explaining things.

This is a remarkably accurate account of what a good year looks like. A skill learned. A thing improved. A relationship deepened. A person who taught well. Four things. Specific, concrete, true. Most end-of-year conversations don't get this far because 'how was your year?' is not a question with an answer. It is a question with an era. You can't answer an era.

The school year is over. The things learned are not.

Most end-of-year conversations don't get this far because 'how was your year?' is not a question with an answer. It is a question with an era. You can't answer an era. The questions that work are specific. They produce specific answers.