Confessions (#21)

I believe I have referenced this work by Norman Rockwell before. I love it.
There is something about the look on her face. It is real, not perfect. Tired, but grateful.
Like good teaching. And, it is funny that tonight, for the first time, I noticed
the broken chalk, chalk dust, and eraser collected at her feet; the eraser on the head
of one student; and how one of the children wrote "Happy Birthday Jonesy" on the board.
Between the sincere kindness of  her students, the mess on the floor, the silliness of a rogue eraser,
and someone daring to call the teacher by their first name, this could have been any one of my classes.  

For good or ill, I allowed my high school students to challenge me. Daily they would question my curriculum and pedagogical choices. And each day, I would indulge their attempts to avoid what I thought best for them. Perhaps it was naivety. Maybe it was the culture of the that school. And while blaming an entire generation, or just the ignorance of youth, would soothe my guilt, deep down I know a part of me just gave up. There is way to give students the freedom and structure they require to learn effectively. But I never discovered it during those thirteen years of teaching.

In addition, during my career at that "little school in the woods", I wore many hats. There was the hat for teaching. Another for administrative work, like accounting, record keeping, communications. Then there was one for marketing, both digital and print. In addition, on Fridays, I would mop the gym and classroom floors. Every day, whether sending out an email on behalf of the headmaster to some irate parent, paying bills and printing invoices, redesigning the website, or just taking the garbage bags to the dumpster, I was doing more than just teaching.

One day during class, while my students hounded me with a request (I believe it was about a field trip), frustrated, I blurted out that I "had a million things to do". And true to form, without skipping a beat, one of my students, an annoyingly lovable one, quipped, "Alright, list them for us, these one million tasks."

Sigh. And true to myself, I surrendered, and began rattling off things I had to do. 

"First, there is the email I need to send out to your parents about next week's event. Second, I have to order the chairs for the event. Third, I have to sit down with the headmaster, and create an ad for the local newspaper. Fourth, the garbage cans in the gym need to be replaced. Fifth..."

I believe I made it to about twenty. What happened next is beyond my memory. Or I buried it deeply with a lot of regrettable or humiliating experiences from my days of teaching.

So, why am I thinking of this particular recollection? Well, I was going to begin tonight's post differently: "There are a million things swirling in mind tonight that I feel like I am drowning in them." And that is when the memory snapped into focus. Then I searched through the titles of my previous posts, hoping to find something better than "A Brief Interlude" or "A Deep Breath". That is when I spied "Confessions". 

And here we are.

I could indulge you, dear reader, like I did my students, and start cataloging all the thoughts bombarding my mind right now. It would not be a million, but it would easily exceed twenty. If I had to guess, a hundred sounds about right. But fortunately, for the both of us, none of you have ever asked me to list them. In addition, many of my thoughts would be too embarrassing to share. Indeed, I would end up humiliating myself and others. Some are typical, while others, trivial. Then there are the repeats, for those who have been regularly reading my blog, or listening to me when I whine. Finally, and simply, I do not have the time, the energy, or the will to present them in some interesting and witty manner.

So, no list for you.

Well, maybe one:

1) Fold the laundry;

2) Wash the dishes;

3) Write a blog post;

4) Daydream about how people will react to it when they read it.