Teacher Shape
Clearly, as I am now in my third week back at school, work is getting in the way of my blog. I don’t think there is any time of year that I am more tired or cranky than my first three weeks of school, which is how long it takes me to get back into what I call “teacher shape.” Yes, I know all jobs are hard, and I know I cannot complain because, as all non-teachers like to point out, I “only work nine months a year.” Nonetheless, it is hard to get back into teacher shape. Teacher shape refers to the ability to stand and talk in a loud voice for six hours at a time, herding in and out droves of teenagers in packs of 35 whose names I do not yet know. This leads to some awkwardness, because until I get to know all of their names, and in an effort to not call them “Hey, you,” I usually refer to them as “honey” or “buddy,” which probably leads them to think I’m a bit creepy. This is also somewhat antithetical to the fact that I am simultaneously trying to lay down the law and fake hard-assness in the first few weeks, so I often say things (in my stern teacher voice), like “Honey, when I’m talking, you are not.”
Teacher shape also refers to the ability to refrain from going to the bathroom for hours at a time. Besides the five minute passing periods, when I am typically fielding the individual issues of 4-9 students on average (eg: “Ms. Morris, I have a water polo game tomorrow. Can I get the homework?” “Ms. Morris, I cut my finger on the three-hole punch. Can I have a band aid?” “Ms. Morris, can you check in see if I turned in my signed parent syllabus, because I can’t remember if I turned it in.”), I do not have a break from 8:27 to 11:38. I thus have to very strategically plan my liquid consumption. Luckily, since I basically wake up with the cows, I can drink my coffee on my way to school and am all in the clear by the time first period rolls around. Yet I know that if I start drinking my water bottle during first period, I’m going to have about three hours until I can actually go to the bathroom, so I typically teach first and second period in a state of dehydration and then guzzle about a gallon of water during third.
Third, teacher shape refer to the ability to wake up really f-ing early. (Nannee, sorry for my cursing, but there’s no other way to put it.) I have been teaching for 8 years, and every morning when my alarm goes off at 6 (or today, at 5:30), I curse life and convince myself that I don’t actually care about children or making the world a better place and simply want a job that starts at 9. The only thing that makes me feel better is thinking about my friends who work market hours…and Blue Bottle coffee.
And finally, teacher shape also consists of the ability to multi-task. At any given moment, I have to be able to hand back papers while explaining a grade to a student while leading a discussion while making sure that Johnny in the third row doesn’t text during class. This makes me a fairly adept multi-tasker, although the one thing I am really bad at is talking while writing on the board. I usually write down what I’m saying, as opposed to what I intended to write down, and/ or misspell things. Today, for example, I wrote “routed” as opposed to “rooted.” One of my very polite tenth graders raised his hand and said, “Um, Ms. Morris, I thought ‘rooted’ was spelled with two ‘o’s,’ not an ‘ou.’” My response? “Sam, why don’t you stop being passive aggressive and just tell me I spelled it wrong.” Sam’s response: “Ok, I don’t know what passive aggressive means.” Apparently, patience does not come until the fourth week of school.
