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!

Getting The Back To School Letter (Wrong Papers, Wrong Walls, Wrong Stuff) 8/5/13

It happened today.  That letter, or e-mail, in this day and time, that says "HEADS UP!  OUT OF THE POOL!!  YOU GO BACK TO SCHOOL IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS!!"  Well, it says that in so many words.  A welcome back letter, with staff changes included.  Information on when we can move in to our classrooms.  Rules upon rules.  No paper here, don't plug anything there, less is more, keep it tidy.....I feel the stress in my stomach already.

We always go back at the end of the summer.  And in a way, I'm ready.  It's just that I can't stand repetitiveness.  Every year the same speeches, meetings, discussions dragged on by people who just have to find the holes and complain, or question ridiculous details.  Repeat, repeat.  Yes, I remember a year later.  I went to new student orientation at Texas Tech last week, for the second time.  Chancellor Nance gave the same speech to the parents as he did a year ago - word for word.  Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome speech, and Tech is an awesome school.  But I felt, as I always do when made to 'sit through it again', that my time was devalued by the presentation.  It's as if someone says to you:  "I don't care that you've heard this before, your time doesn't matter, you are of no consequence, because it has to be said and your ears have to hear it again."  It feels personal.

There are some items of value in the back-to-school meetings.  Meeting new staff.  Catching up with everyone.  Any big changes.  In other words, anything we haven't already been over a million times before.  Is my time better served figuring out the first couple of week's lessons, or running through the building for some sort of team-building race?  If I teach your child, which would you prefer?

Our letter also had staff changes.  I knew that a team member of ours was leaving, and I look forward to meeting the new person. That's right, none of us have met them yet, so don't ask us about them!  We weren't involved.  Nobody asked us.

I want what I always want - to be a good teacher and have a good year.  To inspire children.  To get off the subject every now and then just to talk about history, or current events, or that popular Youtube video. I want to encourage, problem-solve, cheer, smile, demand, praise, connect: TEACH!!!  If you let me do that, I promise not to stick the wrong papers on the wrong walls with the wrong stuff.  Thank you.

The Turning Point, or Rebounding from "Burnout" 7/21/13

When the last day of the school year arrives, I do not cry.  Yes, I'll miss the ones that are moving on.  No doubt.  One in particular this past year - more than any one in a LOT of years.  (Godspeed, Chelsea!) But by the time the beginning of June rolls around, there are no tears left.  There is just tiredness, backed up by being fed up with excuses, whining, arguing, meanness crying, roughhousing gone too far....in other words, burned out.

"Burned out" is one of the awful insider insults in the teaching field. We see another teacher lose their patience, not turn things in, arrive late, depart early......and we whisper "burned out" among ourselves. I personally am always showing signs of "burnout" by the time summer is here. When I am finally home day after day, it takes a while to re-charge.  For the remainder of June, I don't want to be around children, hear  child's voice, talk cute to a child.....thank goodness, mine are grown and there are only college-age semi-adults around.  But sometime in July, it always happens;  I miss the kids.

I start looking at kids again.  I start smiling at the things I hear them say.  (Let's face it, children are, quite often, hilarious!)  I watch them goof off in the grocery store, or at a restaurant.  I'm ready to interact with small humans again.  It takes about six weeks, but the turning point always arrives.  After that, I'm anxious to prepare the classroom and get ready for that first day of school.  Welcoming my little darlings is so much fun. I know that if they are greeting me with a smile, a big hug, and "I missed you so much!" that I'm doing something right in their little lives. I must not be completely "burned out".

I think the turning point has come for me is the past couple of days.  I wondered if events at home would delay the turning point and extend the summer "burnout".  That remains to be seen, because imagination and the actual classroom with the actual little darlings are two different things.  I have been lonely for a few days now, and I think (hope, wish, pray!) that my job is the perfect counterbalance to loneliness.  Children are always needy, or excited, or wondering, or hurt....you get it.  I see one hundred fifty different little ones each day!  There's no way I can be lonely if I truly connect and teach them.  I may be sad underneath, but I won't be lonely!

I do worry some about the coming school year.  I worry that my underneath sadness may surface and cause me to cry, or speak sharply to a child that just needs a gentle correction.  I worry that older little ones, now that they have probably heard why I missed a week last year, will ask me about it, and crack my happy shell and the sadness will pour out.  Hopefully, the very fact that I am worried about them - and how my actions will affect them - will keep me in check.  I like to think I have a protective instinct around the little ones. 

Let's say for now that the turning point seems to be happening, right on schedule.  So many other things have been happening right on schedule since Scott died:  the garbage is collected, the bills have to be paid, haircuts are needed, fingernails keep growing, meals have to be cooked and dishes washed, dogs need grooming.  It shouldn't be amazing to me that I would start feeling ready to see my little ones at school again.  But then again, any good feeling right now amazes me.

In a few weeks, the imagination will become reality.  I really do hope that I can keep the happy face on for the kids and that my twenty-fourth year of teaching music will be as fun for them as it has been for all the little ones through the years.  I'm thankful for the family of friends that will be there with me, and may we all stay away from the "burn-out"!