No Place Like Home

     I recently undertook an adventure. One of my friends that works in education called and asked if I would be interested in an easy, part time teaching position. I was a little surprised, a little flattered and more than a little curious as to whether or not I could do it. The thought also, fleetingly, crossed my mind as to whether I really wanted to do it.  The last time I had been an actual teacher in charge of a classroom inside an actual school building was right after electricity had been invented, so there was a mild degree of trepidation about being in a classroom again. Some of you may not yet be aware of this, but as we get older, many of us find that we think we can still do all the things we once did with ease, but that is a terrible lie that our mind tells our bodies and there are, as a result and far more often than not, injuries involved. I had discovered through this process that standing on a chair to change the batteries in a smoke alarm was not as easy as it used to be, and that walking through a field - no fences, no rocks, no trees and only a few plants - it was quite possible to trip over your own shoelaces and fall on your face. Twice.  It’s a lot like an older version of “hey y'all, watch this” or “hold my beer” without the alcohol but with similar consequences. 

     I shall not name the person that coerced me into doing this, but I hired her as a teacher in a previous life and she is still involved with education.  Her skills at persuasion, coercion and allowing me to think all this was my idea have improved with her educational experience, and it was a sobering thought to remind myself from whom she had learned those skills. She was not devious but allowed me to assume my somewhat rusty teaching skills would hardly be tested with such an easy position that only involved serving as an inclusion teacher for a mere 3 hours a day.  I began, after only a few weeks, to understand why phone calls to the elderly for car warranties are done in such volume and apparently with such success.

     Now don’t misunderstand, she did not misrepresent the position or responsibilities in any way, and any suppositions, real and imagined, were entirely mine, but recognition of personal shortcomings is not any easier to accept at my present age than they were at 20. At the outset, however, I was confident in my own abilities to meet expectations but did insist on the caveat that should things not go as planned, my exit would be both quickly and quietly done with malice toward none.  One thing I have learned is to always have an exit strategy.  I learned that fairly recently and by sitting on the living room floor with no chair, couch or furniture near enough to help me get back up. I won’t tell you how I finally managed to stand but it would have been embarrassing if anyone other than the dog had seen it. She had a smirk on her face until I mentioned an attitude like that doesn’t result in doggie treats and we haven’t spoken of it again.

     After going through the HR process - all done online with the exception of the set up and assignment of a personal computer - I eagerly awaited pre-planning days and the opportunity to meet other teachers, my classroom partners and become, once again, a real teacher.  Being a part of a faculty meeting was an invigorating experience.  I reunited with 15 or so teachers that had, in one capacity or another, worked with me in earlier days, and was excited about the prospects the new school year would bring. I discovered quickly that some things never changed; the district had a “new” initiative that mirrored the yearly initiatives we had used 25 years previously and that it was still possible to feel the happiness quotient of a building by measuring the level and topics of conversation and smiles of the teachers during pre-planning. 

     Having known the Principal and his admin staff for many years, I was not surprised to hear his commonsense approach to how school works and his expectations. Faculty meetings would be rare and only if there might happen to be information that could not be best presented in an email, if you need something let us know, and if we see something you can do better, we will do the same. I was also happy to see they didn’t major in minor issues; expectations for student and teacher behaviors were short, professional and easy to remember and mostly based on the Golden Rule. Hours were not spent on discussing the ins and outs of dress code for teachers or for students. Mr. Principal summed it up nicely by saying “if I look at a student or teacher and think ‘wow, that can’t be appropriate’ then I ask them to correct it immediately. It has to be a startlingly obvious issue.” His admin staff were highly visible, easy to find, immediately responsive and understanding. It was an impressive and reassuring display for teachers and staff. They also covered every lunch, every day. Teachers told me that any classroom disruptions were handled quickly, quietly and the priority was that class continue undisturbed.

     I met the teachers I was destined to work with, and, while both were impossibly young, they each had a couple of years teaching experience.  I was a little concerned that neither really needed my input on lesson plans or semester goals but remembered that almost every teacher I ever met spent much of their summers thinking and revising and refining those items and by this time they were pretty much done.  I did enquire as to classroom housekeeping procedures - those all-important daily procedures that standardized how the class started, progressed and ended, teacher expectations for cell phones, food, drinks, asking questions, tardies, computers, notebooks and the 3,462 other things that help classes run smoothly for as many of the 180 class meetings as possible. I made a few suggestions, they listened politely, and I remember they really didn’t know much about me or my history and weren’t quite ready to accept my input at face value. I probably wouldn’t have either at their age.

     As we prepared for the first day of school, I was surprised by the amount of information stored on what appeared to be an ordinary laptop.  Need a district calendar? It’s in there. Need a school calendar? It’s there too. Need a student handbook? Yep. Need a list of teacher emails. Of course. Want to look at an IEP for a student in your class? No doubt. Emergency operations? Just look here. Zombie apocalypse? I didn’t see that one but have no doubt it was in there somewhere. I am not convinced computers are run through some type of witchcraft; all that information impossibly stored on a little book sized machine that weighed less than my algebra book in high school. The problem seemed to be that I didn’t always know the right spells to retrieve the information I needed.

     I thought myself fairly proficient at computer operations for one who is definitely not a digital native, but my limited knowledge was quickly exposed for what it was, and especially for what it was not. I struggled with remembering the pathways and digital signposts to the wealth of knowledge at my fingertips, and only the power of prayer saved me from having to call roll the first week of school. All that was there, but it seemed only a disturbance in the Force could help me remember just exactly where for a couple of days. The same thing happened with lesson plans and classroom rules and teacher made tests and daily announcements and…you get the idea. I was, in spite of all the years I had spent in schools, a stranger in a strange land.  Shortly before I cursed out loud and threw my computer under the wheels of the afternoon busses, a kindly old veteran of 10 years noticed my frustration and took a few moments to help me plan out a cheat sheet to guide me through the digital corn maze and to the information I would need. It was a happy day a few weeks later when I was able to remember the pathways without the guide and get there on my own.

     As an administrator in a previous existence, I had always had an office of my own, and as a teacher had my own classroom that was my territory. As a part time teacher with no real base of operations, I wandered around for a few days until I discovered a teacher work area that was usually empty unless food was available. Free food, brought in on occasion by the PTO or a grateful business partner, was a magnet for teachers from all over the building, but never lasted more than a few minutes so my hideaway was not disturbed for long. Other than those few occasions, it was a great place to spend a few minutes before classes or watching students interact between classes or during lunch catching up on emails and notices and paperwork and trying to find stuff I hadn’t been able to discover yet.

     I quickly discovered that students were still students, and their job was to test that you really meant what you told them, and then test it again a couple of times after that. Some things haven’t changed in that regard.  The diversity among students was more than a little surprising given the reputation of the school. I found them wonderfully adept in their personal teenage quests for individuality and self-expression, and they represented more groups and philosophies than I could possibly name in a few short pages, but all seemed amazingly accepting of each other's quirks, dress, slang, styles and worth as individuals. It was an impressive display of brotherhood, community and friendship, and I marveled that they seemed to have escaped the constant attempts of the media to divide us as a populace until I remembered that, like me, teenagers generally avoid news tv. The students and teachers genuinely seemed to like each other and go out of their respective ways to make their school a place they genuinely felt comfortable attending.

     Of course, there were disagreements and arguments and quarrels, but for the most part they were minor and did not turn into long term disputes. I did hear of two best friends that got into an argument over a bag of potato chips, and the two young men that thought they should fight over a young lady.  She left the scene, by the way, with their friend after she told both would-be combatants fighting was “stupid.” The three biggest disciplinary issues in this community of 1500 or so was FTSD (failure to stay for detention), cell phone use during class and morning tardiness. If those are a school’s biggest issues, I will guarantee you those school leaders are doing more than their share of effectively leading their school and facilitating a high degree of learning every day, and that teachers are being successful in their classrooms.

     One thing - OK, two things - I had completely forgotten was how tiring it was, physically and mentally, to work with kids, even for just a few hours. It was a matter of being constantly ON, and paying attention to them, to your surroundings, their questions, their behaviors, their level of attentiveness, their attempts to see if you were really attentive and their constant physical energy. Yes, they tested teachers every moment of every day.  It is, after all, their job, and they are adept beyond belief in either pushing buttons or seeking attention or a weird teenage combination of both at the same time.  It was absolutely exhausting, and I found it more and more difficult to recover physically, mentally and emotionally before the next day began; and this was after a half day’s work. The second was the establishment of a new routine.  I was not aware of the extent that I had developed not just an affinity but an emotional attachment to my routine of getting up when I wanted, leisurely having coffee, conversations with my wife and the dog, walking the neighborhood, writing and saxophone practice. After a few short weeks of teaching, I found myself unable, unwilling or a combination of both to adjust completely to my new routine of teaching that necessarily replaced a significant portion of my day. I had always thought myself rather accommodating and flexible, but discovered the opposite was true.  I had become inflexible and intolerant of schedule adjustments to a degree I had never thought possible, and was, in spite of the fact that my brain was convinced I was still a 1969 semi-hippie, made painfully aware that my body had degenerated into the depths of old codgerism, and seemed not just comfortable there but actually reveled in stodgyness and an unwillingness to change. 

     So, after about 12 weeks or so, I decided my capacity for teaching, even part time, was not up to my own admittedly high standards and I decided my best course of action would be, as gracefully as possible, a return to retirement. So here we are - me, my wife and the little dog that sets an impossibly high standard of behavior for both of us - looking out over the forest and watching the deer play in the yard.  I do not regret one moment spent on my return to teaching, but I was smart enough - this time - to know when to let it go.  It was a positive experience, and I learned a little about education and a great deal about myself.  I was reminded of when I went to see my parents a few years after leaving home at 18; I enjoyed the visit, but it very quickly became obvious that I didn’t live there anymore. My respect for those that do rose even higher than before, and, while we might all complain about the changes in education and how much better things were in the old days, don’t think teachers aren’t working hard and still succeeding in spite of the system more often than because of it. That part hasn’t changed at all and… Hey! You kids get out of my yard!