Easy

A student approached me this week with a burning question, "So, why is it that teachers get paid and it is the students who are doing all the work?" I choked a little on my coffee and replied, "Well, why don't you attend college for six years so you can get this cushy job, too." The student giggled a little and headed to her seat. I must confess there was a part of me that was outraged with the little rugrat but a cooler head prevailed. In theory, I should have considered it a compliment. Apparently, I make teaching look effortless.

The reality is quite different, however. This week, I cajoled 13-year-olds into using Punnett Squares to determine the probability of two heterozygous parents producing offspring with two recessive alleles. Yes, their eyes glazed over, too. I fielded the same phone call every morning with the answer, "Yes, O. is on his way now to take his pill." I made several trips to the detention room so the students in the slammer could stay caught up with their assignments. I wrestled paper from the jaws of our bedraggled copy machine flashing "misfeed" for the thousandth time. I spent my lunch minutes helping students get caught up with missing work. My co-worker and I tussled with new curriculum during every spare moment and are still staying just a few days ahead of the students. I scheduled upcoming parent-teacher conferences, answered parent e-mails, attended a before school meeting for a student, completed special education assessment forms, went to the pet store to pick up aquatic plants for a photosynthesis lab, evaluated assignments, recorded grades, chased down missing assignments, recorded grades again, calmed a student who was mad at life, handed out eighteen pencils (a slow week), and kept 110 students accountable for their academic progress. An easy job, indeed.

If it sounds like I am complaining, perhaps I am just a bit. This week our state legislature did not pass a bill that would have given teachers a raise (it failed by one vote). Teachers in our state are currently the lowest paid in the nation. We are not asking to be the highest paid, but it is time for us to be a little more competitive with our neighbors. I look at the young teachers in my building and wonder how long they will stay with us when they can drive thirty miles down the road and get a significant raise just for crossing the border. I am grateful for their commitment to the kids in our state but would not blame them for leaving.

I never went into teaching for the money. From the moments I spent as a child playing school with my younger siblings (sorry about that, dear sibs) to my first real job, it was clear that teaching was in my blood. The profession has been good to me. It has stretched me in ways I never thought possible and I have helped hundreds of kids journey through education. I have felt moments of success and I have also failed, epically, at times.

So, in answer to the young lady's question, "I promise to make it look like I'm not working, if you promise to keep on working."

Games

The big game is upon us, a.k.a. Super Bowl, and all throughout the land there is much hype and purchasing of chips, dips and big screen televisions. I know enough about football to fill an eyedropper and that might even be a stretch. I am completely baffled by men grabbing, grunting and banging heads for the sake of getting a ball across a certain line. I am also shocked at how much money folks are willing to spend in the name of the game. My Calvinistic frugality cringes at such extravagance but I am going to hope some portion of the gajillion dollars spent goes to a good cause, somewhere, somehow.

With limited resources, few televisions, no electronics and little fear of safety, the playground games of my youth were a bit different from those found today. Our merry-go-round was a death trap to those pushing on the interior spokes, frantically trying to goad centrifugal force into action. The tall slide with open steps and no guard rails begged for climbing and crawling unrelated to the purpose of the slide. Somehow, we survived but I do think our merry-go-round should forever rest in peace.

Our group games were simple in nature and usually required little or no equipment. A favorite was Red Rover. Two teams made a chain, linking elbow to elbow and calling for a runner from the opposite team to break through the arm links. "Red Rover, Red Rover, send so and so right over." Of course, the so and so called was always the scrawny kid who had the heft of a mosquito. But, mosquitos have their own strategies. Look for the weak link along the chain, get a good run going and flail with all your might against the entwined arms. I always had a chance for action in this game because I was weak. Sometimes I had to run and always I was attacked by a runner. I don't remember if I was ever successful, but odds are I just finished the game with a sore abdomen.

Dare Base was another popular recess event. The rules were quite complicated. Suffice it to say, the primary objective was putting kids from the opposing team in "jail" and rescuing your own team members from their captors. I also enjoyed this game because I could be a part of the game without ever being too productive. Being in jail meant that I could just stand there with my hand outstretched waiting for someone else to do all the work. Staying out of jail meant keeping a low profile and not venturing too far out into enemy territory. Sign me up for that gig.

Fox and Geese was a winter weather game. Elaborate paths were tromped out in the snow to resemble the spokes of a wheel. I have no memory of the rules of the game. I think we spent more time stomping out the perfect design than we did playing the game. I know for sure that I was never the fox. The hapless goose was most likely my designation.

Recess games taught me a lot about competition and myself. It's okay to lose. You will find friends who have also made peace with losing. You will find strategies that help you avoid games. And, most of all, you will enjoy games that allow you to be yourself.

Forgive me for not wearing any particular colors for the big game this weekend. I will enjoy the grocery specials on snack foods. I love chips and this is my weekend.

Go, team, go!