How I Really Survive My School Year (RE-POST 9/15/12)

This is a blog post I wrote during the first few weeks of the 2012 school year. I plan to publish a new "funny kid stuff" piece after Chess the Musical is over. Stay tuned!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote quite a witty post, if I do say so myself, on How I Survived the First Week of School. Of course, as witty as it was, I left out the real way I survive my school year. And really, it's less about survival and more about why I chose my career. (It sure isn't the mad-crazy-huge paycheck I get every month.)

Here are a few anecdotes that remind me why I love what I do. These happened over the last couple of days. Just think how many of these cute little stories I accrue by the end of the school year.

What's in a name: 
One little girl told me she was named after a wildflower "because sometimes I'm kind of wild."

Animal lessons: 
My student teacher called on a kindergartner who told him, "Do you know that lizards are hard to catch with your big hands?"

"Yes," my student teacher responded as though it was the most normal question in the world.

The observations of children:
One teacher told me that she was standing in front of her classroom projector the other day. The image that was being projected onto the screen, and incidentally onto her face, was green.

One child called out, "You have lettuce on your face!"

Pointing the finger:
A second grade class had to return to the risers the other day when they couldn't handle one of the activities.
One student said, "Everyone is causing trouble . . . except me!" 

Teacher titles:
When I tell them my name is Mrs. Duggan, what I am actually called is like a lesson on Theme and Variations. 

• Mrs. Doostan
• Mrs. Doogie
• Mrs. Doodans
• Mrs. D
• Music Teacher
• Music Guy (This is what the kindergartners call my student teacher. I am Music Teacher. He is Music Guy.)
• Mrs. New Teacher (This is what the first graders called a teacher who filled in for our PE teacher at the last minute on Thursday.)

Where did you get that idea?
Maybe we teachers make it look too fun, and kids get the wrong idea about our profession. One of my sixth graders told me that he has already decided to be a teacher when he grows up. But his reasons weren't quite as altruistic as I hoped.

"Great pay and summers off," he said.

Boy, is he in for a rude awakening. Neither of those things are true. Neither of those things make the profession worth it.

Here is why I do it . . .
One of my students, an immigrant from Africa, wanted to join choir so badly this year. Unfortunately, his parents have no way of getting him to school by 8:00 a.m. His father leaves in the family car at 5:00 every morning, and the little boy has no way of getting to school other than by bus. (The bus doesn't usually get the kids to school until right before the bell.) As my student told me all of this, his eyes welled with tears. I wracked my brain as to how I could get him to school in time for choir. Deciding that driving to the opposite side of town and picking him up myself at 7:00 a.m. was probably not the best option, I told him to jump off the bus and run to my room as soon as he got to school the next morning, even if he was a little late for choir. On Thursday, he showed up to choir twenty-five minutes late, but we still had twenty minutes of singing left.

His ear-to-ear grin is what really makes my profession worth it.

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