Teaching is a pain. It’s hard. You have to be on for 53 minutes, five times a day. You have to be ready for anything a class can throw at you because, if those little suckers sense weakness, you disappear from their view and the phones take over. Gameplans have to be daily, though many have year-long goals for kids. You can’t pee when you want to, or need to. You have to wolf down food during lunch or snack. Sometimes you don’t finish your food.
It’s a club that many people belong to. I’ve seen great teachers, and I’ve seen ones that couldn’t care less about anything but the final bell. And, in the midst of all those teachers out there, I have to claim myself the same. I’m in that huge club. Whatever good or bad things you’ve thought about teachers gets put on me, and anyone else, who teaches kids.
Have a great teacher when you were in high school? That’s me.
Have an insensitive ass that was awful from day one? That’s me.
Genius? Me. Fool? Me. Male model? Me (for fertilizer). Hard on the eyes? Me.
We’re all in it together, people. No matter how good or bad you are as a teacher, most folks outside of teaching just lump us in the same category.
I used to carpool with the wife and an older teacher who had seen it all. We would sometimes complain on the ride home. We would share ideas, gossip, talk about things other than school (weird, I know!); but, most of the time, we would laugh. I’ve written it before, but teaching is ridiculous. You just have to step back from it now and again and laugh. Hey, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of opportunities throughout the day to chuckle, chortle, guffaw, or break into hysterics. But when you ride in a car with three, sometimes four, English teachers who, after a long day, break out student work for some dramatic readings . . . I’m surprised we didn’t crash some days.
It’s teacher appreciation week, if you didn’t know. Last year, our teachers got a bag of chips from administration. This year, we got a lottery ticket (perhaps millions await us all). The “I Care” folks gave us a bag of pretzels and a little big of sweets. PTA was, and is, amazing every year, feeding us, giving us gift cards, and always showing us that they appreciate what we do by making everyone a little wider.
So now it’s my turn. Oh wait, we’re just teachers. As Iago says, “‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.” It’s up to us, so I think I’ll just work alongside you and do what’s best for kids. I will root for you when you’re scratching that Lotto ticket, though. Good luck to us all.