On Back-To-School: The Teachers

On Back-to-School:  The Teachers

Colleen Rogers

As a retired teacher, this is actually the first August that I have not had an overwhelming wistfulness over not returning to the classroom.  It has taken me several years to not identify myself solely and exclusively as a teacher. 

The withdrawal process I have experienced has been painful.  While teaching, at the end of a teacher-summer, I would whimsically head to my Mecca, the “Teacher Store”, and shore up with an inordinate amount of posters, bulletin board materials, content area books, and background paper.  This initial supply hunt would be followed by a trek to Target or Wal Mart, to also load up on requisite markers, pencils, pens, notebook paper and the like—essentially getting everything on every Parent’s School Supply list as well.  Whatever I bought, I knew would be disappear or be depleted long before October.  I would “replenish” with some freebies by covertly foraging for pencils from the floors of the school hallways by the onset of fall.

Every year, I would “homing pigeon” my way to school the week before the first day. With grand flourish, I would “decorate the classroom”, moving desks and hanging posters.  I always had to first track down my assigned classroom key, which was held in the Main Office, guarded in a secret portal by the school secretary.  When She begrudgingly  placed the key in my zealous, enthusiastic hand, I knew I would be beholden to her for the remainder of the school year.  And so it began.  I schlepped my new stash of supply-purchases from boxed carloads to a barren classroom.  I would look like a wrestled, wilted flower by the end of my runs. 

It would always be hellishly hot in the classroom, and the posters I hung would slide in protest like paper lava down the concrete walls.  I finally found a tape that cemented each of the laminates without ripping paint off the janitor-treated walls.  (Teacher Rule #47:  Never tick off the Head of Maintenance by tearing off paint with tape).  In a few short days, I would gleefully share my Poster Affixing Secret with all the new teachers, like the dutiful Sage Mentor and Torch Passer that I one day hoped to be. 

When I finished arranging my modest "Learning Center”, I would circle the building, peering into the nondescript classrooms with a false sense of preparedness for what was to come.

The first week of school was Teacher Initiation Hell Week.  There was a round of Goal-Focused Teacher Strategy Meetings to kick things off.  Teachers would show up, groggy and heavily caffeinated, still wearing the Summer Shorts of Denial.  The secret meeting subtext for all teachers was to assess the Administration’s Support-‘O-Meter, eyeball the new colleagues, and groan over the building shifts.  There was a lot of sarcastic eye-rolling, some sneaking away for dibs on the Xerox machine, and lots of horse-trading of instructional materials.  Because I, by nature, am such a Suzy Cream Cheese, I was golly-certain that this year would most definitely be different.  So wrong-oh...

No teacher ever sleeps the night before school starts, no matter how seasoned they might be.  Like Opening Night on Broadway, there is a cross-training level of anxiety like no other.  Though your classroom rules are done, your syllabus is finalized, and your “instructional strategies” are “on firm”,  you never feel truly ready.  When you wake up on the first day, it seems like you are leaving to work a wretched night shift in a coal mine.  Week One is always a tsunami of incompetency.  You are training for a grueling Educational Marathon designed to break your once-spirited soul. 

Your rosters change daily, textbooks don’t arrive, the Xerox crashes and burns, and you realize that your worst nightmare will be your last class of the day...for the next nine months.  You look to colleagues for support, but each of you is quick-sanding in their own School Swamp.  All the motivational summer workshops, the restorative beach margaritas, and the promised positivism for a better year is now bent and spent.

By Week Two, you know student names, have started identifying Hell Raisers, and no longer need to tutor anyone on “How to Open A Locker or Tie A Shoe”.   You are rocking your day as a surrogate Parent and Confidante, problem-solving it all like a Ninja Warrior.  You still don’t have enough rest, but you are getting your rhythm back, and sort of have a routine.  You have scoped out your bathroom break area, and mapped your twenty minute lunch errands route.  You start to wear your school shirt on Fridays, and You Own It.  Still, when your friends invite you for a Friday night beer, it’s a “no go”.  You can’t, and it’s not because of any professional moral superiority.  You can’t because you’re exhausted.  You’ve given your brain and your physicality to instructing “your” kids at school.

By Week Three, you start calendar projecting...when is the next holiday, the next early dismissal, the next In-service, etc.  "Will we have a Snow Day this year, and will we need to make it up in June?"  You are not looking for the breezy day because you’re lazy, you just need a break from the school tsunami.  When I was teaching, it would take me a solid couple of weeks to wind down for each inviting June arrival. 

After nine months of dealing with bone-headed decisions over which you have no control; logger-headed parents who let their child run amuck; and limited successes with zero resources, you appear non-functional.  You need those “break” days throughout the year to re-charge.  You do NOT want to become one of those teachers seen on the Nightly News—the ones who initiate a brawl with a parent or an administrator, finally snapping under the weight of professional restraint.  You see, it is not always the kids.  Sometimes professional dissolution originates from the behavior of other adults —the very ones who should know better and “have your back”.  

So, as children are being gifted the shiny newness of shoes, clothes, backpacks, and laptops in preparation for returning to school this year, consider what teachers lack as they return to class.  This year, be sure to think about what each teacher does to set up your child’s classroom.  Consider the things teachers purchase, organize, arrange and prepare.  Think about the emotional investment each teacher gifts--how teachers “parent” in your place, and instruct the “moral compass” that your child’s classmates may not possess.  Imagine how teachers in a techno-world advance humanitarianism  for the children they see daily.  Visualize what your child would miss if their classroom was solely the log-in on their home computer.  Remember all the teachers who were such cherished life characters, whose influence you still talk about... even now... as an adult...with your own kids.  If your child admires their teacher this year, think about sending along a small gift card or a box of classroom supplies to support them.  This considerate gesture will be appreciated beyond measure.

 Or, if you know a teacher personally, drop off a pizza on a Friday night...along with a cold six pack of beer.  Trust.  They'll be home...and in their pajamas.