If you ever want to make a teacher mad, flippantly imply that we have it so easy only working 188 days a year. If our days started at 8 and ended at 5, and existed only Monday through Friday, I could understand the argument a bit better, but nights like tonight happen so often that a straight 40 hour work week sounds downright inviting.
I left school at 4:15 after a short-for-me nine hour day where even the “breaks” I have are filled with non-stop work. I headed home to pick up my husband and go out to a much needed dinner. Our entire drive was spent talking about our days, mainly venting about the frustrations and worrying about how we will ever escape the stresses of our jobs.
James and I don’t normally take our phones in to restaurants with us, but I did as I wanted to check my ridiculous basketball bracket while we watched a game during dinner. As we sat down at the bar, I noticed I had two emails from students whom I had sent home with unfinished work for the first time all year. It was all I could do not to respond to those emails but I set my phone aside and focused on my husband.
Mid-way through dinner, I picked up my phone to see if by some crazy chance I had picked Notre Dame over Bama (no such luck), and I see I have a third student email. While I quickly read and responded, my husband pointed at the TV, which displayed the news headline about Biden’s pledge to increase cancer funding and I was reminded of the need for me to be fully present with James right here, right now. I set my phone down, hoping my encouragement for the one student will get her through her frustration and reiterating the directions I gave to the other multiple times at school will get him through completion.
I didn’t check or respond to emails again until we arrived home when I was able to celebrate with the one student who finally got the assignment done, and I bit my tongue and responded to the other who was asking more questions about the assignment even though he had not worked on it when he was supposed to, and hadn’t stayed in at recess like he was supposed to, both times that were designed for me to answer questions and provide additional support.
By 8, my husband went to bed but I intended to stay up for a bit. Sitting on the couch reading the news, I thought I heard a great horned owl outside. As I fumbled with my phone to get my bird app open, another email popped up, this time from a parent.
I opened it to find a lengthy letter complaining about several instances during the past week when their child hadn’t been treated as they thought he should be at school. While I was only involved in two of the incidents, I was the only teacher they sent the email to (as far as I could tell).
I stopped putting on my shoes, abandoning my owl quest, and typed five drafts of a response before settling on one. I thought about not responding at all, but I knew it would bother me anyway, so I might as well deal with it. I know how parent emails fester for me, and dealing with it head-on was the best course of action for saving my weekend from overthinking the entire thing.
But at 10:30 I am still awake and I frustrated with my evening. I’m thinking through all the ways I could have handled the evening better to preserve my personal time. Yes, I could turn off my emails on evenings and weekends, but there are things my colleagues and even administrators communicate that are time sensitive. I could choose not to respond to my students, but my goal all week was to help them through their struggles and I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch just because the school day ended. And the parent email I probably could have (and maybe should have) just forwarded on to my principal, but an upset parent bothers me and I’d like to restore peace as quickly as possible. I’m not sure I achieved that, since I am still wide awake obsessing over it, but I don’t want them to feel even more ignored.
I’d like to say nights like this are rare, but in truth, they are more common than they should be. I wish I could convince parents that there are very few instances when an email should be sent to a teacher during the evening or weekend unless it is to sing his/her praises, but that suggestion will never fly. Parents protect their children and they get as riled up as we do when they feel we’ve done their child wrong.
And I wish I could get kids to see all the time I am there at school pouring out my time and support so that they might not expect it later, when they finally come around to doing the task, but again, that is a pipe dream.
So, I will apologize (again) to my husband in the morning and I will vow to leave work at work but I know I won’t. I can no more stop thinking about the kids than I can can stop breathing.
But, when I am on summer vacation and someone tells me how nice it must be to have my whole summer off… well, don’t expect me to agree with you. Those are the only days when I am ever truly shut off from my classroom. And if I am to remain a passionate, caring, involved teacher, I need those days as much as I need the air I breathe.
Teaching at 3am 