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Coleen Armstrong 

You might think that by the end of a 31-year teaching career, I would have had every problem put to rest and every dilemma resolved. No such luck. In most cases, in fact, the only resolution I reached was to accept that there was none–-and there probably never would be.
For example:
 

• The 5:30 a.m. body slam.
 From my first day of teaching in 1968 to my last in 1999, my frame never grew accustomed to the shock of hearing the alarm go off before dawn. There were many, many days, in fact, when I fell back asleep while standing under the shower spray.
 

Who ever decided that the world should revolve around morning people, anyway? Expecting a teacher to be vibrant and bouncy at 7:00 a.m. every day without exception is, in my mind, a crime against humanity.
 

And each time I read a new report stating that teenagers’ internal clocks weren’t set for early learning, I couldn’t help wondering why we keep on, decade after decade, torturing so many people.
 

• The myth of the three-month vacation and the six-hour workday.
 How can any reasonable person still believe that teachers are laboring only when they’re physically inside their classrooms? When do they think tests are graded, worksheets are typed and lesson plans are written? Not to mention all of those meetings, parent conferences, e-mails, and recertification classes.
 

Yet I still periodically see letters to newspaper editors insisting that if teachers want to be respected, then they need to get full-time, rather than part-time jobs.
 

• Nationwide, culture-wide lip-service.
 “Teaching is the most difficult, yet the important assignment in the world.” Yeah, right. If we really believed that, would we still be expecting teachers to pay for their classroom supplies out of their own pockets? Would we still be blaming them every time a child misbehaved?
 

Would we still be huffing and puffing that 30-year veterans with masters’ degrees don’t deserve salaries above $50,000, when 20-somethings starting out in other professions earn that much and more? My 26-year-old niece is a newly minted CPA. She earns $86,000. Draw your own conclusions.
 

• Homogeneous versus heterogeneous grouping.
I had wonderful classes filled with bright kids who learned at a breakneck pace. I had equally wonderful classes where across-the-board mixes meant that the slower ones learned from the shining stars, and the stars learned that not everyone was born with their intellectual advantages. My heart warmed every time I witnessed two students of widely different ability levels forming a close friendship which never would have materialized if it hadn’t been for my class.

So which is the best way to go in regard to tracking? I still don’t know. 
 

• Talking less, teaching more.
 It pains me to admit it, but I never quite learned when to shut up.
 

Oh, I certainly grew more concise and reticent with age. But over the years I can recall only a handful of classes where halfway into a discussion I could sit back and let the kids carry it. Now I wish I’d tried harder to make that happen more often––instead of feeling a need to fill every silence.
 

• There, their, and they’re. Two, to, and too. Your and you’re.
 No matter how many times I went over proper usages, my students continually misappropriated all of the above. For all 31 years. Sometimes I wondered, “Couldn’t they occasionally get one of them right by accident?”
 

• Getting all of my classes to work as hard as I did.
 The greatest challenge of all, and one which I never managed to overcome. Remember the term “passive learning”? It describes what so many unmotivated kids do––just sit there, watching the teacher emote, bubble, cavort, dramatize, and turn cartwheels––and then later, turn in a “response” paper of three sentences. For me, nothing less than best of show would do. For them, minimal performances were plenty; they got me off their backs, didn’t they? Unfortunately, yes. But if I’d insisted on stellar efforts from everyone before moving on, we would never have gotten past chapter one.
 

Today, years after the fact, I know that although I gave my students a 120 percent commitment of energy, what was really called for was closer to 200. Which probably would have killed me by age 40––but it’s what is expected of today’s teachers, and rightly so.
 

Yet another unresolvable issue.
 

 

Coleen Armstrong 

Teachers everywhere are currently bracing themselves for what I call the “I just got slammed over the head with a shovel” syndrome.
No educator will need any explanation of what that means; he’s already nodding his head in recognition. But a parent or taxpaying citizen might.
 

Regardless of how many lesson plans the classroom teacher has prepared in advance, he is instantly deluged on day one with an unrelenting shower of paperwork: classroom rosters, textbook inventory sheets, emergency contact and health forms. Seating charts must be created, grade books must be organized. There are spreadsheets to create, daily attendance, cut slips, and drop/add notices to keep track of.
 

There are also as many as 170 new students to meet and greet. The teacher knows that first impressions, while lasting, are by no means definitive. Over the next several weeks he’ll likely discover that while Joe’s withdrawn demeanor hides a sharp, evaluative intellect, Marcy’s hides a deep-rooted dislike of all authority figures––her new teacher included. Over the next several months, this teacher must strive to make certain that Joe doesn’t get too bored, and Marcy doesn’t erupt in fury over a chance remark.
 

Now multiply those two by 15. Or 30. Or 85.
 

What I’d like to convey to the public, first, is this: Despite what you’ve heard, teachers don’t work a mere seven hours each day and then dart out the schoolroom door to enjoy a leisurely, balmy round of tennis. Between the first day of school and Thanksgiving “break,” most are putting in an extra four hours each night and even more on weekends. (Who do you think grades all of those worksheets, essay questions and class projects? And when is that likely to happen?)
 

Second, most teachers genuinely want to do what’s best for their students. Once met and greeted, each one becomes a cherished individual with a multitude of complex desires, challenges and needs. In time the teacher will attempt to get to know each one better. During the first few weeks, however, he’s doing well to stay afloat among a multitude of personalities and demands.
 

So to the teaching ranks, I’d like to offer some advice: First, accept that early in each school year (sorry, over 31 years I never found a way to significantly change this unpleasant reality) you will feel completely overwhelmed and exhausted. But once the logistics are in place (seating charts must be configured during that first evening; there’s no other way to start learning who everyone is), and things begin to run more smoothly, you’ll hit your stride. This is not to say that you won’t frequently continue to feel as wrung out as a wet dishrag. But that shovel you were hit with early on will return to its figurative closet. Until next August.
 

Meanwhile, you must find something that invigorates, enthuses, energizes, and entertains you. Whether it’s jogging, reading People Magazine or rolling out homemade pizza for your family’s dinner, identify it and then clutch it fiercely to your chest. Don’t surrender it to the almighty schedule. Constant workworkworkwork with no free time and no relaxation has never provided anyone with a longer, happier life.
 

One final illustration: Following one of my most harrowing first days of school many years ago, I arrived at home about 4:30 p.m. feeling so whipped that as soon as I closed the front door, I lay down on the living room floor to rest for just a moment. I awoke four hours later––still wearing my suit and high heels, still clutching my loaded leather briefcase in my right hand. It was a wakeup call in the strictest sense.
 

After the first three weeks, I was no longer coming home feeling so dead that I instantly conked out, still dressed in full business attire.
 

Most days I managed to at least kick my shoes off.