A Pen Note from the Desk of Taco Fighter 3011

It’s a funny thing-teaching for three months, or so. All of your habits begin to change. You start going to bed earlier. You start taking care to make sure that nothing is stuck in your nose, drinking less/ or much more and much earlier, etc. You may even begin to alter your dress. You may not wear certain t-shirts; you may not wear t-shirts at all. You begin to wonder that if you wear certain things some of your students may secretly make fun of you behind your back-they probably will anyhow no matter how hard you try to not draw attention.

When you become the “teacher ”(footnote 1) you can’t help thinking about what your students may be thinking about you. I remember as a younger-man I often used to think that my teachers had no life outside of class. I’m not sure exactly, but I think at the time that I felt they just crawled underneath their desks and waited for the next morning. Lord knows what I thought they did over the weekend, let alone over the Summer.

As the “teacher,” I have often been walking thinking about what my students think that I am doing. I think that they’re probably thinking that I’m at home reading, planning for tomorrow, practicing on delivering my next lesson to a bored old aunt. In many cases they are right. I’m generally at home these days, prepping or I’m out doing other things my students would expect of me, like taking too long to pick out a bar of soap. Standing there in the aisle, nervously trying to make a decision, wishing for some reason the other customers would leave, so that I can better make my decision, and then, grabbing the cheapest one. Ivory, yuckola.

To put my Captain-Obvious-Hat on-teaching is some tough work, probably one of the hardest jobs you’ll ever love-thank you very much Ameri-Corps. I’m not sure if all overworked and dedicated individuals take on these “classic-teacher behaviorisms,” the role of the responsible adult, but I’m not sure how long they keep it up. Do you ever get better at this job? Probably, but like anything worthwhile it’ll probably take a lot of time and effort.

I’m looking forward to the days- perhaps fifteen to twenty years from now-when we (newbie teachers) can go in bleary-eyed and hung-over and give an excellent lesson on paragraph modeling. It’ll take some time, perhaps years of practice, but it’ll all be worthwhile, when we saunter out of school at three pm make our way down to the studio apartment and curl up with our cat or dog, because no woman or man could ever find a teacher lovable, no matter how noble a career they believe it is and even say it is at cocktail parties.

While, I’ll readily admit that the first few years do look bleak-I’ll make preparations to ensure that there are some rewarding things that come out of the first few years, other than experience, human connection and the warm feeling of goodwill. I’m thinking one day I’ll steal every stapler in the place, just for a day, just to sit back and see the chaos ensue. Imagine all of the pastel notifications, highlighter-green scheduling sheets, everything, free-floating-not a staple in sight. Oh man that shit will be gangbusters. It’ll make it well worth the low-pay, under-appreciation, social ostracizing, and down-right ridicule due to our poor life decision skills. Oh, well f-it, commitment to a bit. Right?

(Footnote 1)- I use the quotations only concerning me. I don’t think I’ve actually taught anything more than how to match your shoes to your belt, carry a smug underserved sense of accomplishment and simultaneously retain an air of mysteriousness. It’s true, you really teach your students yourself. Watch out Bay Area, they’ll be flipping your burgers, shinning your shoes, and making you coffee-you’ll see the smug look. Go ahead, feel confident about it. Ask, dollars to donuts they’ll probably have been in my class at one time or another.