Please let the Teacher Relax

Dear Young, Giggly Women in Palm Springs near the Hotel Pool,

It scares me a bit that you’re teachers.  I only know your profession because of your seeming lack of volume control.  No offense: you may be wonderfully gifted with kids—it's obvious that all three of you are loud enough for any child to hear from clear across any playground.  Yet something about, perhaps, your carefree laughter and grand interest in the Kardashian wedding does concern me some.  It makes me, in these last glorious days before the stressful schoolyear begins, nervous.  I was hoping to enter a sort of Zen State prior to having to enter the Realization Zone that I will soon be responsible for the education of 30ish kids.  Hence, the hotel stay.  But, alas, even here, you prevent me from experiencing any sort of blissful denial. 

You planted yourself right near me.  It’s crowded, so I don’t take it personally.  But, I long for you to, at minimum, and for the love of GOD, change the subject.  Being the professional that I am, I will refrain from screaming what others might: namely, shut the F up. 

I’m frustrated because in the last ten minutes, you have succeeded in dropping a plethora of LAUSD acronyms.  There’s nothing I can do to avoid you—there's no other available beach chair.  I suppose plugging my ears is rude.  But, really, I’d rather you name drop instead of acronym drop.  So far, one or the other of you has uttered letters including, but not limited to, ELD, CELDT, ELL, IWT, IEP, ELA, TPS, and ABCDEFG.  Here’s some letters for you: UGH!

(not me)

I’m not sure why I fear we share the same occupation.  Maybe it’s because you’re so bubbly and loud? And young?  Maybe it’s because you watch the Kardashians.

In my very serious professional environment (did I mention my school scored 826, and potentially higher, on our API?), my colleagues and I don’t’ go home and read up on the goings-on of Untalented Rich People, like Khloe Kardashian.  Instead, we go home and review such things as Marilyn Burns books, the California Dance Standards, and our ELSIG treasury.   Funny how you left out that acronym—maybe the most important one of all. 

Additionally, the teachers at my school don’t partake in such trash on television of which you refer.  Please.  We’re much too evolved.  Instead, we bask in the glory of such highly acclaimed and esteemed shows as, oh, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, and (my favorite) various shows on addiction (the best is watching meth addicts. Not sure why). 

So, you see, Young, Giggly Women in Palm Springs near the Hotel Pool, maybe it would behoove you to ZIP it.  Maybe you should just suck it up and take in some rays.  Throw on some earplugs and listen to ELD chants.  Think-Pair-Share with each other about where to go for dinner.  Whatever you do, leave me out of it.  You’re irritating. 

In thinking about it, though, there is, I suppose, the slightest possibility, that maybe, just maybe, you drive me crazy because each of you sound vastly more ready for the school year than I am.

What channel is that dumb show on anyway?  Where was the wedding?

Signed,

Anxiously-Soon-to-be-back-to-the-Grind

A Realistic Teacher Preparation Program

The new school year is on my mind. As my anxiety surfaces, I remember that you can’t be taught to teach.  There’s no program to prepare you.

The two things I took away from my education program: incorporate technology in your lessons, and if someone bleeds, stay away from the blood.  Also, don’t let other kids touch it. 

After a few years in the classroom, here’re just three of the many pieces of information I’d include in any educational program in order to better prepare the future teachers of America. . . 

1.     When walking around your classroom, you will constantly step on things—pencils, erasers, pins (previously called thumb tacks), dry-erase marker caps, and a note that a student intended to pass, but either never made it to the recipient or the recipient didn’t bother to throw it out.   You will find the note especially disappointing because of all of the misspellings. 

Usually you will step on something particularly annoying when there’s some sort of major classroom ruckus of simultaneous goings-on.   A girl will be crying over girl-drama, the principal is on the P.A. and you can’t hear what he’s saying (but it sounds important), and there’s only thirty minutes left to prepare the students for a test, pass it out, and have them take it.  It’s then that you will step on gum that shouldn’t have been in the school to begin with.  As you step on it, a kid with a horrible cold and snot drippings will ask for a tissue and the school is out of them: budget cuts.  You’ll tell him to get a paper towel, but we’re out of those too.  You’re so mad about the gum that it will be really, really hard not to respond like this: “Ever hear of a little thing called a sleeve!?”

2.     Whenever an elementary school child does something wrong, it’s an accident.  In response to these accidents, you will hear yourself saying things like, “Well, Martin, I’m 42-years-old, and in my entire life, I have never ACCIDENTALLY elbowed another person in the gut.”  Or, “Well, Angela, in all my hundred years on planet earth (some of them will believe you are 100), I have never ACCIDENTALLY called another person fat.  Another favorite: “Which part was the accident?  Constructing the perfectly geometric paper airplane when you should have been working on your paragraph or throwing it clear across the room when we were lining up for recess?” (Some things never change.)

3.     Being a teacher (especially at my school) is like triaging emergencies.  As teachers, we have to figure out who’s bleeding the most, try best to address that need, and then move down the list to the student who is next in line for some sort of (usually major) intervention. 

So, not only did my teaching program not prepare me with the real goings-on of a classroom, they also delivered misinformation.  Many of these kids are, in fact, bleeding.  And I do need to get close to the blood.  As teachers, we just try to be careful. 

Would love to hear more important information for future teachers from my educator friends… What tidbits would you include in a teaching program?