Five Things This Teacher Will Always Wonder 1/26/14

My own words this afternoon kind of surprised me.  "Several times a day, I wonder what it would be like to work among adults only.  But then I think if I didn't work with children, I would die a slow death."  Really?  Do I think that?  Definitely yes to the first half.  Wondering about those other jobs out there - you know, not teachers - I've been doing that since 1986. I even tried to look up how much a delivery truck driver makes one time, because they just get to drive, deliver, stop for lunch somewhere, then take the truck back to be loaded up and do it again the next day!

Is the grass greener outside the elementary playground?  I will probably never know.  I dream of moving into one of the those educational positions at a museum or something....but I don't actively pursue it.  I have to support myself and my girls, so taking a chance on finding a different-type job is too risky, in my mind.  So I am left to wonder about the outside world, like a confined princess in a tower. Well, maybe like a middle-aged woman that can't escape the workhouse...I prefer the princess, though. Here are five things I will always wonder:

1. What's it like to be able to get up and go to the restroom when you need to at work?  Elementary teachers can't just walk out of the room.  We have to get someone else to watch, oversee, protect, make sure hawks don't scoop up...the children.  Although I am having a laugh here, it's actually quite necessary.  We can have a fellow teacher spell us for a potty break - but our best bet is to learn the schedule and never over-Starbuck ourselves, even on tired mornings!

2.  Who are these people that are at restaurants for lunch every day?  Every great now and then, the schedule gives us a lucky break and we get to venture out - to Jason's Deli, Panera, the local Tex-Mex, a good Chinese buffet - about four times a school year, if you're counting.  When teachers walk in, usually group of women with school t-shirts or their badges flipping at their collar, we can hear the rest of the population think "Oh great, the teachers are out today..."  Who are those people?  I want to walk up to each and every one of them and ask "What is your job?  Do you get to eat out every day?  How much do you make?  How much vacation time do you get?"  But I don't.  Evidently those types of questions are frowned upon from strangers.

3. How does it feel to go through an entire work day with nobody hugging you? Or poking your stomach to tell you something?  Or petting your toes?  Unless you work in a very unusual place, I have got to assume that you "other job" people out there do not get treated as if you are some one's substitute mommy - or stuffed animal!  By the way, in the winter, the toe-petter will rub my suede boots.  This is my third year to teach her, and it has lessened - I feel it's my job to let her know that you can't just pet any one's feet!

4.  If you start to not feel well in the middle of a day, do you just go home?  I know that not everyone can....but can you turn off your phone?  Change a meeting?  Put the e-mail on out-of-office for thirty minutes?  Can you run to Walgreen's on the corner to buy some medicine, then try to make it through the day? Don't get me wrong, we can take measures if things are bad enough, but if it's just a headache, or the start of sniffles, something mild?  We just carry on.  Maybe have an extra bottle of water or cup of tea.  Then  we ask a colleague to watch our kids when we have to run to the restroom.

5.  What's it like to shop locally without children yelling your name?  It is evidently SO COOL to see the teacher outside of elementary school.  And the parents are there, witnessing how we greet their precious little ones, and sometimes wondering 'Who the heck is that?'  So no matter what a long day it's been, how tired we are, we put on a smile, say hi to the precious darling, introduce ourselves to the parents...and then we have to remember why we came to the store in the first place!  If we are lucky, they are leaving, and we don't encounter them on every aisle we walk, to get an update on what groceries their mom just chose.

Actually, number 5 is the reason I went back to teaching happily after my five years off.  My five years off happened to take place in England (I know, cool, right?) from when my girls were two and three, until they were seven and eight.  It was a complete blessing to be home with them during that time.  About six months in, though, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table just sobbing my eyes out.  I analyzed it carefully.  Of course I missed my family.  Of course I missed my friends. Of course I missed the familiar area, stores, etc.  But what I really missed was people knowing me.  Nobody stopped me to talk in the drugstore.  Nobody kept me standing in the driveway chatting for an hour, so dinner was late.  I like to be known!  Granted, we were very new in England, and at the end of my five years I had all that and more.  But learning that about myself has kept me teaching.  Oh there are nine hundred kids in the school?  Bring 'em on! I only get to see them every other week?  That's okay, I'll make sure they know me and that they learn music. Because I am their teacher, for those five days a week, nine months a year, I belong to them and they belong to me.

Me, with some of the earliest huggy darlings - around 1988, when the wondering began!