Teaching

When I tired of teaching, I sought an escape through a Master's Degree in Instructional Technology, complete with code and web design. Short story - I'm still in teaching. All said and done, I've had an amazingly fun ride as a teacher and love it. Nothing can be harder, more distressing, complex, exhausting, and exhilarating than this path.

I didn't plan to be a career woman, but have been grateful for the choice to persue an amazing occupation. Life has thrown my sweetheart and me some curves that required my profession, my health insurance, and the knowledge earned in the classroom.

The other night as I lay waiting for the slumber bug to hit, I reminised the HYSTERICAL classroom moments that have provided laughter:

• watching a dreadlocked, baggie-panted, hoodie-wearing, mean-looking, soft-hearted male student run to fly his personally-sewn kite for the points needed to graduate high school while holding up his pants with his free hand
• admiring Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Cluff waving and laughing at their classes from their car as they circled the parking lot, blowing their horn because they'd arrived late to class after lunch
• turning off the lights and hiding with my whole class from Heather
• seeing high school students fight over who got to take home Walter (our pre-school guinea pig) for a long weekend
• alarming the front office and administrators with a briefcase bomb
• observing what happens when ice is thrown into a deep-fat fryer
• sewing through my own finger immediately after bragging that it'd never happened to me
• gluing a Skittles rainbow onto contruction paper and knowing my daily rate of pay
• taking 25 students to watch a cow be slaughtered
• having the nick-name Lizaird Lazerock
• being thrown over a student's shoulder and carried out of the classroom while demanding recognition of authority
• making ball-sized cookies
• chopping nuts
• helping a frustrated student set in a tailored sleeve by totally taking over and putting it neatly in upside-down
• allowing a student to make a jacket out of clear vinyl
• teaching sex education
• spotting girls from my beginning gymnastics class and them believing that I could do it
• emptying the pee-filled chalk bucket used for the uneven parallel bars
• finding out years after the fact that two of my students drank booze in my classroom on a regular basis from their 32 oz. soda cups
• slamming my shin into my desk drawer then jamming pins into my palm then staggering into the edge of a door during a lecture
• turning on the lights and setting up "the steaming cup of coffee"
• driving the school bus, parking the school bus, abandoning the school bus
• seeing the Rhodes dough teddy bear's belly button change position during bake time
• yelling at Dr. B.
• Dr. B.'s copyright hit-list
• Mr. O.'s buttermint stretch
• laying in my bubblebath at home during parent teacher conference
• eating at the Ideal Cafe with Marthanne
• finding my own fingernail in a hand-dipped chocolate
• hearing that a student thinks my socks are stupid
• riding a skateboard on my head before the entire studentbody
• falling flat-out on the floor from my platform shoes before a class
• lecturing with oreos in my teeth
• measuring the inseam and chest
• realizing that so few people care
• docking 2 points