Easily Excitable

I signed my contract yesterday. Am I allowed to say that? Is that a FERPA violation against…well…myself?

Can I tell you something more impressive? 

I haven’t thought seriously about quitting my job in, like, three years. 

That’s saying something, particularly for a woman who, in the first two years of teaching, thought about nothing else. 

Okay, okay… that was a little dramatic. However, in certain periods during year one? I DID think that every day.

I wish I could fully list out the mistakes I made in my first year of teaching. 

I will try one day, but please know it was nothing but a comedy of errors. Only, really, it was a comedy that wasn’t so funny. 

If you can survive the first year of teaching, I believe that there is nothing you can’t do.

Survive the first year, and you’ll flourish.

Now, eight years in (how am I even saying that?!), I’m grateful I stayed- every day, every period. 

But, I would be lying if I didn’t say that, specifically in the first five years of teaching, there have been more than a few times when I’ve found myself wondering if this one would be my last.

Initially, I didn’t seem myself retiring from the classroom: I thought I might go try my hand at something different- something like real estate (I know a guy).

And yet, year after year, I’ve come back. 

Now, eight years in, I’d like to think I’ll retire from teaching after some 30-odd years in a classroom. 

Now, that seems like a more and more uncommon thing to do. 

I don’t blame the teachers in the least: it’s hard on these streets. 

These students, on the outside, are not like us, as Kendrick Lamar said best. 

I don’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes, and I’m not even that much older than them. 

What’s really odd is the fact that these kiddos were BORN when I was in 9th grade. When they tell me they were born in 2010, I want to vomit. 

I tell them as much. 

They love it.

Teaching overstimulated kids isn’t easy. 

It sometimes feels like doing tricks for 8 hours straight. Kids’ attention spans are shorter now, a product of a scrolling world.

I’ve waxed spiritual about this, and I won’t do so here. 

But, here is the outcome of that: teaching is just different now. And it can be frustrating. I don’t have to tell anyone in a classroom that.

Cases in point?

The loss of learning from Covid was disastrous. 

We live in an ‘everyone’s an expert’ kind of world, regardless of whether you have the credentials to back that up or not. 

There seems to be more questioning/disregarding authority. 

There doesn’t seem to be as much accountability at home anymore. 

To find the faults  in the system, you do not have to look far. 

There is so much negative, so why do we stay? 

Year after year, I- along with my coworkers- come back.

We come back to those exhausting days of over and over again repeating instructions as if our kiddos were 9 and not 9th graders. 

We come back to days that, for the most part, were actually really good, but that were overshadowed by an infuriating incident of disrespect, or non-listening kids, or a stack of essays breathing down our necks.

Why? Why do we stay? 

In the beginning, I stayed simply because I needed to finish a Masters degree: I didn’t want to lose my money with nothing to show for it. 

Plus, really? I just hate to quit. 

In the beginning of our relationship, I went so far as to tell Trey that, after five years, I was out- I would be done with education.

I bet he was so excited to see what career this little hottie (I’m sure those were his thoughts) would get into that would make her a higher-earning life partner. 

Alas, I stayed in teaching. 

Jokingly, I tell my kids I stay because I need to earn a paycheck to make sure my dog lives a good life. 

That line stuck. They repeat it back to me often. 

WHICH MAKES ME WONDER WHY WE CANNOT REMEMBER TO CAPITALIZE THE PRONOUN I. 

But that is neither here nor there.

But, too, I stay for other reasons:

I stay because of the moments when someone says something so inappropriate that I have to choke back laughter while disciplining said-offender. 

-For the teacher lunches when everyone is at the end of their ropes and we have to talk trash for 27 minutes.

-Because there is nothing more satisfying than watching a child’s face when you use their own slang against them. 

-For the dress-up days. 

I stay…

-So that I get to hear the kids critique my afternoon running in town. 

-Because there is no excitement quite like that of a teacher when it’s Friday.

-To give advice to the kids that I know they won’t heed (only to see the fall out thereof).

-Because at no other job would people (the children) get my age so wrong.

(I’ve been 23 for 8 years according to the teens.)

I stay…

-Because not having to sit at a desk all day is a privilege.

-For the 10,000 step goal I can hit from pacing around in a classroom.

-Because I have the biggest office I’ll ever have (even though I share it with teenagers for the majority of the day).

-To spread the gospel of wearing deodorant.

-Because my immune system has been strengthened in the moments when they breathily whisper, “I need to go to the nurse.” All while standing six inches away, mind you.

I stay…

-For the sake of my prayer life, which starts getting real active this time of year.

-To see juusssttt how far a dress code can be pushed.

-So I can cross off options from our baby name list. 

I stay…

-Because it is good to see your former students doing good things, to see them be an addition to society. 

-To constantly have the length of my pants policed (please note: the kids have determined they are entirely too short).

-Because some of these stories can only be experienced to really be believed. Hearing them? I’d think they were fake too.

I stay because I have autonomy in my classroom. 

-Because there is no better leadership than the folks we have.

-To influence the ones who will grow up to cut my hair and look after my grandmother one day.

-Because there are still many, many parents out there who do the right thing: who hold their kids’ feet to the fire and who support their teachers. 

I stay…

-for the haircut transition we see across 4 years: from long hair to mullet, from mullet to buzzed, from buzzed to long and grungy, and from grungy to MAYBE (please, Lord) some semblance of a haircut that makes them look hire-able. 

I stay for the kid who has no one else, as well as the kid who has a full support system, but just needs a little extra love sometimes. 

I stay because I believe that every child deserves an equal starting line. I can’t do anything about their home lives, but I can try to level the playing field. 

I stay… 

because I will watch your child grow from a 14 year old to an 18 year old. 

I will hear their voices change, see their hair get longer, feel myself have to look up at them to speak. 

I will watch them from the nervous first steps into my freshman classroom to their senior strides across the graduation stage.

I stay because this is the good that I am Called to Do at this Moment. 

Because, really, no matter what vocation I may have, my job is simple: 

I am to carry out, to the best of my ability, the good that God has ordained for me at this time with the gifts that He has given me.

Ultimately? This is why I stayed. 

And this is why I’ll continue to do so. 

So long as He wants me here, in this middle Georgia classroom, I’ll be here. And I hope it turns out to be a full 30 years. 

So long as there is one kid who is happy to see me-

Actually- no. I take that back: I realize and fully accept that I teach teenagers.

So, redo: 

So long as there is one kid here who doesn’t totally hate that I come to work (though they were mighty mad when my jury duty got cancelled Tuesday), I’ll stick around here. 

Honestly, there is no place I would rather be: I mean that wholeheartedly. 

I love my job, I love my coworkers, I love my admin, and I tolerate my kids. 

That’s what I have to keep my mind on, here as the spring crazies hit. 

So even as my patience is gone by fifth period-

Even as I have to play instrumental hymns all class period to keep me calm (I still end with 5 minutes of instrumental rap, don’t worry)- 

Even as a kid tracks vomit in my classroom from the bathroom-

Even as my whole sixth period class bursts into song about a pineapple pen (I was also confused)-

As for this teacher? 

I’m here to stay, so long as they’ll have me (they may be ready to kick me to the curb soon. I wouldn’t blame them).

A couple years ago, we were celebrating a coworker’s birthday. 

The best teacher I’ve ever known/ taught with was asked to bless the food. She prayed that God would remind us that what we do is noble. 

This stuck with me, obviously, and I agree: teaching IS noble.

It doesn’t feel noble sometimes: it’s not tidy work. It’s exhausting, anger-inducing, and frustrating.

It’s those things and a whole lot of good mixed in.

And maybe that is what makes it noble in the first place, even when it doesn’t feel like it. 

Roll on, teachers. Spring break is a’coming!