before the rush
i want to break things. and i also want to sing, all the time.
i want to kiss everyone i see, but mostly i just want to be held. imagine we are walking on a crowded sidewalk, you and i: we walk and walk until we are right beside each other, feet falling in exact symmetry with eachother, our hands swaying at exactly right time and all the while slowing moving in, until the next thing you know we are holding hands, and no one has blinked an eye.
i like to imagine this is how we will meet.
they say i won't get paid for six weeks while the paperwork goes through, and then they tell me, "buy your own classroom supplies-- we'll reimburse you up to $50 worth, but not for several weeks". i am already in the red, but it doesn't matter. nothing that won't budge is really worth complaining about, so i bring in cups full of pens from home and staple dollar-store wrapping paper to the bulletin boards.
orientation is a sham (and i thought last year's was useless). no information about how to enter grades or attendance into the system, although i suppose it doesn't matter since i don't have an ID to log into the system yet anyway. i wander around finding my things, with occassional interuptions from well-meaning teachers who swish their skirts around like mother hens clucking that i look "lost".
i'm not lost. i know exactly where i'm going-- which is downstairs to the basement, to the only classroom i've seen with bright orange walls with holes kicked into them and rusted metal chairs that could probably give you tetanus just for looking at them.
and you ask me what teaching is like, and this is what i think:
teaching is different every minute of every day. sometimes it is like flying down the interstate with your lights off; sometimes it is like chewing on tin foil; and sometimes it is like watching a thousand blackbirds take flight all at once. most days it is like riding your bike down the steepest hill you can imagine, trying to dodge potholes without using your hands. effortless, grueling, terrifying-- and in the end, you're so damn happy just to have survived it that you can't wait to go back and do it again.
i am standing at the door, waiting to meet you.
i want to kiss everyone i see, but mostly i just want to be held. imagine we are walking on a crowded sidewalk, you and i: we walk and walk until we are right beside each other, feet falling in exact symmetry with eachother, our hands swaying at exactly right time and all the while slowing moving in, until the next thing you know we are holding hands, and no one has blinked an eye.
i like to imagine this is how we will meet.
they say i won't get paid for six weeks while the paperwork goes through, and then they tell me, "buy your own classroom supplies-- we'll reimburse you up to $50 worth, but not for several weeks". i am already in the red, but it doesn't matter. nothing that won't budge is really worth complaining about, so i bring in cups full of pens from home and staple dollar-store wrapping paper to the bulletin boards.
orientation is a sham (and i thought last year's was useless). no information about how to enter grades or attendance into the system, although i suppose it doesn't matter since i don't have an ID to log into the system yet anyway. i wander around finding my things, with occassional interuptions from well-meaning teachers who swish their skirts around like mother hens clucking that i look "lost".
i'm not lost. i know exactly where i'm going-- which is downstairs to the basement, to the only classroom i've seen with bright orange walls with holes kicked into them and rusted metal chairs that could probably give you tetanus just for looking at them.
and you ask me what teaching is like, and this is what i think:
teaching is different every minute of every day. sometimes it is like flying down the interstate with your lights off; sometimes it is like chewing on tin foil; and sometimes it is like watching a thousand blackbirds take flight all at once. most days it is like riding your bike down the steepest hill you can imagine, trying to dodge potholes without using your hands. effortless, grueling, terrifying-- and in the end, you're so damn happy just to have survived it that you can't wait to go back and do it again.
i am standing at the door, waiting to meet you.