The "Line" of Teaching

Today I read a blog about the "line" that teachers walk every day as being a tight-rope. Lately I've been thinking of this line more in terms of my personal life versus my professional life, but the article speaks more on crossing over from teacher to parent. I find that it's all too easy to cross that line.

I'm not married. I don't have children. It is easy for me to say, "Sure! Come to my classroom after school for a quiet place to work on your homework and get extra help!" Even though my contract time is over and I'd love to go home and read, watch TV, run, etc. The truth of the matter is that once I'm home I am overwhelmed with all the grading I need to do, so then I end up doing nothing. Once that student is there it's, "You're hungry? Here's a snack!" or "Let me teach you a way to organize your notebooks and folders... oh? You don't have folders? Let me give you some, along with new notebooks."

It's not only time and money. It's everything. Sure, I teach my students language arts but I also teach them morals, values, goal setting, etc. It never ends. As teachers, we're crossing over into lessons that historically parents have taught their own children. The hard part is that there are so many parents that don't have time to talk to their kids about things like bullying and it's something that greatly affects us, so we have to make sure every student knows those important issues. In an article Nik sent me this week, they called the parent/teacher relationship an "arranged marriage." Here we are, with the best interest of the kid's academics in mind, but we have this great responsibility to raise these kids up right. Not once when I was in school to become a teacher did I realize how much of my teaching would be on life and not on language arts.

The original point of this blog was going to be on a topic of great interest for me lately because I've had a group of students coming to my apartment door every Wednesday. I'm so happy that I have students that are excited to see me outside of class and that want to come share their time and stories with me. The problem is that my personal time outside of school is not spent (or should not be spent) as a teacher. This is why I haven't stayed in relationships with certain guys; because I didn't want to be a teacher of relationships for them. I avoid students at the supermarket, I whine to Nik when he wants to go to the local ski resort because I don't want to run into my students, and the list (I'm sure) could go on and on.

I guess this just ends with acceptance. Accepting the kids you try so hard to reach but just won't reach back. Accepting that anywhere I go, I am a teacher; I am a role model. Accepting that teachers wear many hats: parent, teacher, cheerleader, enforcer, etc. I can do that. But I'm still going to avoid them at the supermarket.