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You know what a “9 to 5” job is. You’ve heard friends talk about it, musicians claim that they could never do it and you are astutely aware of how a clock works. Yet, despite your knowledge of what a 9 to 5 is, you’ve never experienced it. The concept of a “desk job” eludes you, but nevertheless you remain an expert on desks.
The worst initiative a school can make is buying new furniture, because every student desk has such a rich history that they belong in the Smithsonian.
The worst initiative a school can make is buying new furniture, because every student desk has such a rich history that they belong in the Smithsonian.
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A good student desk will contain vast valleys, the product of years of erosion from spilled water bottles, misappropriated paint and dulled keys. They will have crudely rendered cave drawings, showing the first signs of adolescent intelligence. An ancient, barely translatable text will be scribed on their surface, detailing horrific revelations about someone named ‘Monica.’ And their underside will be littered with saliva, in the form of a pre-chewed, sticky substance, chalk full of primitive DNA.
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Yes, a good desk is a detailed map of the journey of a civilization of individuals, forced to work a 9 to 5 job for years without ever receiving a pay cheque. A good desk should never be replaced, as it can teach us about where we’ve been, help us determine where we are going and make us all wish that we had become musicians.
Let’s say you’re starting a new school. Lots to think about. Many things to do.
Best to make a list: Number 1 – Buy Parachute. Whatever else you include after this particular item is important, but decidedly less so. You’re on the right path to success. |
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The kids in your class are deep into Spider Man this year, they’ve seen the movie 100 times and quote you lines on a daily basis.
“Sorry Billy, hate to break it to you, but Spidey sucks. There is only one true superhero in this world, and his name is Juan Valdez.” Brewed fresh, delivered daily, or quickly picked up on your way to work - nothing beats it and nothing replaces it. Leave the Green Tea at home, hippie. |
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You know the haves and the have nots in your class, and those ticks and crosses are flying across the page like you were gifted with clairvoyance.
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When suddenly, without warning, you mistakenly distributed a positive that turns out to be a negative. They may have been wrong all along, but you only caught it after you assumed their answer to be correct.
As a teacher you are never imperfect, especially in your judgement of others, so you deftly make a single left to right, downward diagonal line through your check mark and all of your follies of pre-judgement are forgiven. You just made the ‘check-ex,’ a symbol not available in any word processor, and suddenly the world is right again.
Rights are easy to wrong, but wrongs are difficult to right. So when that student asks what the symbol you made denotes, just tell him, “You were wrong, but I tried to let you down easy by giving your X a little flair.”
As a teacher you are never imperfect, especially in your judgement of others, so you deftly make a single left to right, downward diagonal line through your check mark and all of your follies of pre-judgement are forgiven. You just made the ‘check-ex,’ a symbol not available in any word processor, and suddenly the world is right again.
Rights are easy to wrong, but wrongs are difficult to right. So when that student asks what the symbol you made denotes, just tell him, “You were wrong, but I tried to let you down easy by giving your X a little flair.”
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Remember that shirt and pants combo you wore on the first day you became a teacher? Of course you do, because you’ve been wearing pretty much the same thing ever since. You can always tell what year a teacher started, because their outfit is stuck in a time warp.
Depending on the age demographic of teachers in your school you will invariably see: 1) The Teacher Sweater: Making 60 year old grade 1 teachers look even older since the dawn of the profession: 2) Track Suits: Yes, it makes sense for the PE teacher to wear this, but why does he always bring his whistle and sweaty school polo shirt to social gatherings? 3) Tweed Jacket and Elbow Patches:Bueller…? Bueller…? Bueller…? 4) Slim Fit: There’s always one young, attractive teacher at the school who is getting away with wearing the latest trends. He probably looks dashing right now, but what you fail to realize is that he will still be wearing his slim fit shirts when the style and his physique have come and gone. and of course, 5) The Power Suit: Admin are not excluded from the trends in teacher garb. They can rock a suit like nobody else, and I’m not just talking about the ladies. Invariably though, there will be one issue with what they wear – shoulder pads. Tiny heads and linebacker builds, that’s what 80’s suits were made of. Yes, you can afford new clothes, and even nice tailors, your problem is not the cash – it’s the inability to change. So bury me in my cardigan, because even in this humidity, it’s not coming off. |
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Joining the team of adhesive substances that help create connectivity amongst the teaching community, is the famed Post-It Note.
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Like our students, Post-Its Notes come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Also like our students, Post-Its are often covered in marker and crumpled up in a heap near the waste basket by the end of a lesson.
The Post-It serves many purposes, such as reminding you of things still To-Do (until they lose stickiness and you realise your agenda items were never really that important). They also provide feedback on students' work (until they fall off after the work is returned and parents send you threatening emails asking why you never mark anything). And they are a helpful tool for posting class rules on the wall (until a stiff breeze knocks them off and your class descends into chaos). Mostly, as a teacher, the Post-It Note keeps you humble, I guess. |
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That is until that one great moment where you find one lying on the floor and without thinking, you crumple it up and toss it across the class directly into the open trash receptacle, proving to your students, yet again, that you still have game.
