If you wait long enough at the end of the school day, after the students have moved on to after school activities, you may catch a rare glimpse of teachers in their natural state. Teachers don’t come to their profession randomly. They must possess a certain silliness that neither age nor maturity can touch. There is no way any adult can work with teenagers for hours on end, day after day, and not enjoy a certain juvenile sense of humor. And so, on a recent Thursday, two real math teachers and one fake math teacher (that’s me… I’m the fake one since I work on math remediation) were lingering in a classroom unfettered by the presence of students and free to be themselves. 

Colie (pronounced Kohley), Peggy, and I were just talking at the end of the day. We had Teri for a while, but she moved on to grade. The rest of us stood there sharing the odd behaviors of our students and the states of our homes. We can crack each other up! I’m not exactly sure how the conversation meandered that day, but somehow we ended up discussing our flexibility… or lack of flexibility. We may have come upon it naturally, like discussing the importance of stretching at our age (although Colie is pretty young), but I’m pretty sure that’s not how things ended up there. We were laughing way too hard for that. Next thing we know, all three of us are on the dusty, dirty tile floor of Colie’s classroom demonstrating our ability, or inability as the case may be, to stretch. Prior to this day, I did not realize that it is possible to laugh hard enough to pee while in a full stretch. While in this compromising position, the door to Colie’s room flew open, and two real math teachers and one fake one all whipped their heads towards the door fully expecting the principal to be standing there… or even worse, a student. Instead, there was the relatively new janitor. We couldn’t even offer an explanation because we were barely breathing since our laughter had reached such a point that we were simply snorting and gasping for air. But really, what explanation could we offer? We weren’t even sure how we had ended up here. 

That poor janitor looked like… well I’m not sure what he looked like because I had tears pouring out of my eyes. He quickly stammered that he would come back later and closed the door. I’m not sure if we made his day, or if he wandered around for a week questioning the sanity of each teacher he ever had. So that’s what teachers (and fake teachers) do when unsupervised. Do our students rub off on us? Probably! Did we start perhaps a little immature to survive in such a place? Definitely! So, I have found my people. Sometimes, after wandering around for years, we land right where we were supposed to be. That is where I find myself. These coworkers are my friends and sometimes stretching partners. Our students will grow up and move on, while we remain in a state of suspended development, which is exactly where we need to be to survive. 

Have a great week everyone. And if you catch your teachers in a compromising stretch, you should just close the door, or join them. We are very welcoming like that. Have a great week!