School is dismissed!

“School is dismissed!” is Ish’s declaration that there will be no more school. Its significance lies in the change it announces: after trying to teach the children, he decides that continuing lessons has no purpose, and makes the end permanent in words the children cannot yet fully understand.

Context and Decision

That morning, the sound of children assembling shocks Ish. His attitudes have changed so thoroughly within a day that he had forgotten they expected school. He goes downstairs to meet them, finding the group gathered except for Joey and two younger children. They sit wriggling on chairs or squatting on the floor, watching him with an alertness he suspects will not last.

Ish connects their attention to Joey’s absence and the question of what that means for school. Yet he believes the children’s interest is temporary, and that their underlying lack of engagement remains. Looking over each face, he judges them capable but without the particular flair he had hoped to find. He decides to stop teaching and feels no pain in making the decision.

The Declaration and Its Reception

Ish first says, “School is dismissed,” then repeats the announcement more emphatically: “School is dismissed!” The second declaration makes its full meaning explicit: “There will be no more school—ever!” He recognizes that he is being dramatic, but the repetition gives the decision the shape of a formal pronouncement rather than a lesson simply ending for the day.

The children’s response changes as they understand more. At first, their faces show consternation, followed by pleasure they try to conceal. When Ish clarifies that school is over permanently, consternation returns without the earlier pleasure. They shift uneasily, and some begin to leave. The phrase has made something happen, but its lasting significance is still beyond their grasp.

Aftermath and Significance

The children go out slowly and quietly into the rain. For about a minute after they have left, Ish hears silence; then they suddenly shout and become children again. School, in their experience, has been only a passing incident, and he thinks they will probably neither remember it nor regret its loss. Ish feels a heaviness and thinks of Joey, but does not regret what he has done; he remains convinced that the decision is right.

The phrase returns in his thoughts as he repeats, “School is dismissed!” Its echo links the closure of the classroom to an earlier moment in the same room, when he watched the electric lights fade out. The recollection places the end of school beside the fading of an older world: both are rendered as a disappearance witnessed in the room, though the children experience the first only as a brief interruption in their day.