Simply Finished!

No more classrooms

No more books

No more teachers’ dirty looks.

Yep. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Wooohooo and Hallelujah!

For better or for worse, I’ve completed this year’s teaching assignment. Tuesday afternoon, I packed up whatever creative teachery was left in the unventilated bookroom, cleaned off the white board, stacked up the chairs, and closed this chapter behind me.

It happened just in time, too. Things are starting to heat up here in southeast Georgia, and there are pubescent boys in my classes. Did I mention that the bookroom was unventilated?

Next week, the students will enjoy a spring break before returning to take the test. You know the one, the one that shows whether their unventilated bookroom teacher has any talent left in her at all.

That’s the way I always interpret it, anyway.

That’s probably the reason that it leaves me so burned out. (That and the fact that the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be.)

The students ain’t what they used to be, either.

There isn’t a curriculum or program for the job that I do. I’m just given a list of objectives and access to any remnants I can find in my unventilated bookroom. Being the chronic over-achiever that I am, I just create my own material. It’s kind of like making a quilt.

If you’re thinking that I can reuse the fruit of my labor, you’re partly correct. I can reuse the remnants. But you see, I don’t teach objectives; I teach children. Since the children change from year to year, I'm perpetually quilting. 

I store my materials in a tote in the attic. During quilting season, I pull down the traveling teacher box and try my best to keep it from crawling about the house.

It has been in the dining room…
And the living room…
And in the bedroom…

I committed myself this time to finding a solution to keep it contained. I had grand notions of a blog worthy repurposing project, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, it has llived on a shelf,

 behind a shower curtain,

 in a little used bathroom off the den.

Nothing like a constant reminder that your career is in the toilet…

So today I get to pack it all up again and wait for the Man of the House to come home and lug the traveling teacher box up to the attic for another year. I get to reclaim the bathroom, my time, and my creative energy. It’s a good feeling.

I won’t know for weeks whether I can call this year’s teaching adventure a success or a failure, but at least at this minute, I can call it completed. If hard work counts for anything, it was a job well done.

And that, my friends, is this week’s simple pleasure.

*****

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