A Glamorous Life

Teaching is not glamorous. (Like you need to be told that.) I mean, I guess it could be glamorous for theatre teachers who get to act and win Oscars, or train their student actors to win Oscars, but other than that, no glamour. Won't see any teachers on the front cover of Vogue anytime soon (but, you know, this is an unpredictable world). 

As far as my own teaching experience goes, I've gone through a lot of it when rose-colored glasses. As an idealistic undergrad I was always like, "I am never going to do that in my classroom." I had a list of things I would never do in my classroom, then come student teaching, I did most, if not all, of them--talk about hypocrisy in its highest form! 

I wanted to teach like The Dead Poet's Society, or Good Will Hunting, or Freedom Writers, Lean On Me- who wouldn't want to be that positive affect in someone's- a lot of someones- life? Not that those teachers would ever claim complete credit for their students' various successes (though why they claim complete credit for failure is beyond me), but good teacher's want to be good role models: this is the ideal.

However, realistically, the ideal cannot be lived out every day. This is not bad or wrong, but some days really do just drag on and on- some days are just mundane, which perhaps should make me more thankful for the days that are incredibly exciting and life-changing. 

Some days I don't get teachable moments- I just get a bunch of things I never thought I would say like, "No more crackers for you, kid. I said one cracker at a time, you have, like, fifty, which you're going to throw away anyway. No. No more crackers for you." Seriously, I never thought I'd get Jillian Micheals-serious about snack food. 

Some days need to be lazy days because I, or one of my students, might be going through a rough time outside of school (or even going through some petty drama: "He said he liked me, but he won't call."). Some days are just as far from glamorous as if 'glamour' didn't exist. Some days, I just need to make sure that my students leave with their pens and pencils in their backpacks. Some days, I can't ask for more than I can get, and that's fine- even fire crackers fade out. 

Still, I'd like to think I teach well enough to merit an inspirational, heart-wrenching film, I just want to make sure my students feel safe to make mistakes and ask questions. Anything extra is a plus.