Monday, October 09, 2006

. . . yawn. . . .

I left the house at six fifteen this morning and I got back home about an hour ago. That's a long day, and I'm really tired.

It's not even ten p.m. yet, but I think I'm going to go to bed. I feel like such a sissy caving in like this, but today, it's got the better of me.

It wasn't a difficult day; it was a very good day, in fact. It was just a long day.

BUT, the longest day at the college still beats the best day I ever had at the public school. I even had an hour for lunch with a friend! I never had that, before. For 26 years, I had 23 minutes for lunch, and by the time I ushered my students to the cafeteria and made sure they all had their lunches and/or money and/or knew to tell the cashier they were on free lunch, it was more like ten minutes. Deciding whether to sit with some adults for a few minutes, or go to the bathroom, was a hard choice to make every day. Usually I sat with the adults, since the nearest bathroom was a country mile away and it took longer to get there and get back than to visit with a peer for a minute. My next break was only four hours away; I could wait. Why could I wait? Because I had to. There was no alternative. Teachers who leave their classrooms for even a moment could find themselves liable if a student decided to behave like a jerk, and guess what; our schools allow jerks to sit right beside your well-behaved child and torment him/her all day long, and there's not a thing anyone can do about it because there are usually letters of the alphabet involved which render the jerk untouchable.

YOUR child, on the other hand, will be disciplined if he/she snaps and strikes back.

Bah. I can't think about that right now; I'm too tired.

There is something about some adult contact in between student contacts that refreshes and replenishes a teacher. It would have made all the difference in the world back in the middle school, but I guess that's too complicated a concept for most administrators to understand, sitting in the ad building with all the time they want for lunch most days as they do, and working so hard to see where more positions might be eliminated so they can double and triple the classroom load and duty load and before-school load and after-school load since the schools are now keeping many kids every minute of the day except the few hours at night when the parents reluctantly pick their kids up and take them home to sleep, the school having furnished all three meals and a cot for dozing, once again. . . . .

Ramble, ramble. . . . good thing I left my red pen in the car. I'd never let a student get by with that sentence.

I got an hour for lunch today. How much time did your child's teacher get? I bet it wasn't an hour.

Do you know what your child's teacher would like for Christmas? Not candles, or lotion, or picture frames, or ornaments that say "World's Best Teacher," lovely as these things truly are. Your child's teacher would really appreciate some gift cards for restaurants.

Most evenings, teachers are too exhausted to even think about dinner, but the teacher and his/her family have to eat, and the gratitude for a restaurant card would be genuine and enthusiastic. Go ahead and buy a scented candle and a tube of hand cream if you want; the teacher will use them and enjoy them, but for a really happy teacher who will remember you with positive vibes, put a restaurant gift card in an envelope with a little note thanking him/her for all the things he/she does for your child, and I'm betting your child's teacher will leave the building that evening a little less tired than usual. Your gift card and note might be the difference between the teacher leaving at the end of the year, and staying on to work a miracle the next year, maybe even with your child.

We don't praise each other enough. We're good at finding fault, but we're falling behind in the praise department.

This post makes no sense. I'm just too tired.

Good night, my dears. I love you all.

Don't let the bedbugs bite. Bedbugs have to eat, too, but I don't want them munching on any of you. You're all far too precious to end up as bugbait.

Okay, that's it. I'm going to bed before this post gets even stupider.

I mean it this time.
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