You Should Have Taken More Photos: A Mid-Year Love Letter to Your Class (and the Beauty of Letting Go)

Term two is almost over. The moment when your classroom is suddenly quiet after the final bell of the term is a feeling that all teachers know. You stand there, looking at all the empty tables and glancing at the walls that are filled with student work from the first half of the year. Before you know it, it’ll be the end of term four and the students that you guided, laughed with, nagged, encouraged, and grew alongside are gone. You will all be moving on to your next chapter and will be left wondering how time slipped away so quickly.

This might be niche, but maybe, like Bad Bunny croons in his song DTMF (short for Debí tirar más fotos’ or ‘I should have taken more photos’), you might be thinking the same thing, that time is quickly slipping through your fingers and you might need to actively appreciate what you’ve got, while you’ve got it.

We don’t realise we’re experiencing the ‘good times’ until they’re over.

The classroom is rarely a present-tense place. You’re always planning ahead, thinking about future lessons, assessments, assemblies, and excursions. There’s hardly any time to pause and fully soak in the small, ordinary moments, like the inside jokes, the breakthroughs, the chaos, the quiet, and the daily routine that becomes your little world for 10 months.

Those ordinary moments? They’re everything, and when they’re gone, you miss them. Even the challenging ones. Every class, every group of students is a once-off, and you won’t get that particular mix again.

Like in our personal relationships, sometimes you don’t realise how much a group meant to you until they’ve left. When signs of their presence stop appearing in your room, then it hits you. You were part of something fleeting, special, and now, finished.

Take the Photo. Write the Note. Celebrate the Moment.

Let this be a gentle nudge. Take the photo. Write down the hilarious thing someone said. Save the thank you card. Laugh a bit longer. Give the speech. Capture the vibe.

No, you don’t have to be one of those teachers who turns everything into a photo op but take a few every now and then. Give yourself something to look back on. At the end of the year, the photos won’t just be for the students; they’ll be for you, too.

It’s Also Okay to Feel Ready to Move On.

Here’s the flip side of the coin, and it’s one that teachers don’t talk about enough: it’s also okay to feel ready to let go.

In fact, it’s actually quite healthy. It doesn’t make you cold or ungrateful. You can deeply care for your students and still feel excited for a fresh start. Teaching is cyclical. That’s the beauty of it. Each class shapes you, adds to your story, and then makes room for the next.

You might feel emotionally wrung out, creatively drained, or plain tired. That’s normal and beyond okay to admit. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting; it means that you’ve given everything you could and now it’s time to regroup, recharge, and refocus.

In Bad Bunny’s song, there’s a longing for what was and will never be again. But in teaching, you get another chance to be pleasantly surprised and inspired by a new group of kids. Then, you will eventually begin to reminisce all over again.

So, Here’s What We Are Going to Collectively Do in Term Three…

Take the photos. Journal the wins. Let the tough days go. Remember, every class is a chapter, not the whole story.

One day, you’re going to look back and say, ‘They were such a great group.’ And if you’ve done it right, if you’ve been present, open-hearted, and reflective, you won’t just remember what they learned. You’ll remember how they made you feel. And, you’ll even have a photo or two to prove it.