THE TEACHERS’ ROOM
Here is a place to rant and rave. Here is a place to vent, to protest the injustices of the unreasonable parent, the oblivious and demanding boss, the recalcitrant student. Real people, other teachers who “get it”, will listen and care, apply some TLC, and provide a sounding board for the most difficult situations. What would we do without each other? I walk through the door into the safety zone.
Mindlessly groping for my “Joys of Teaching” mug, I shove a teabag in and fill it with water. Into the microwave it goes for exactly one minute. I plop unceremoniously into a chair next to my buddies. Grabbing a donut hole from the box that someone left on the table (who knows how long ago? Who cares?) I let the sugar and hot tea do their work. They seep into my soul. Just as I’m catching my breath, one of the business teachers tells an unbelievable classroom tale that takes it away again, and I laugh till my eyes water.
“Yes, I taught the entire class with my skirt tucked into my panty hose, and no one said a word. Just as the bell was about to ring, one of the girls slipped quietly up to me and told me.”
One of the Math teachers jumped in. “That’s almost as good as the day I noticed a low snigger rumbling its way through the class. I was so proud of my crisply perfect geometry proof, but I didn’t see it as all that funny. It was then that I happened to glance down at the floor and there it was – a long section of toilet paper trailing from my shoe. End of Math lesson.”
I will survive this day, and the day after, because of these friends and teammates.
But there are downsides. Occasionally, violence erupts. One morning the Earth Science teacher and one of the Art teachers, both males, got feisty and began to horse around near the copy machine, inadvertently knocking one of the female math teachers flat on her back. Splat! I thought she was down for the count, but her eyes were wide open, gazing quizzically at the ceiling as if to say, “What was THAT?” The two gentlemen slunk away in a cloud of embarrassment and kept a very low profile for a few days. She survived the fall in good condition, much to their relief.