wheat and chaff

Your first year, did you ever think about quitting?

No. What? No. I signed up, didn't I? Maybe I'm unsympathetic but quitting to me seems selfish and weak. There's nothing remmotely appropriate or adult about signing up for something without being fully committed to it. Nodbody said it would always be a vacation. Suck it up.

This weekend, I went to Clinton, MS along with my cross-country team. At 8am Saturday morning I was on a school bus with far too many loud, foulmoulthed, hyped-up, not-stayin-in-their-seats, ungrateful little etc etc. You get the picture. I mean, they're all precious snowflakes and everything but come on. Cross country has been eating my life-- every day has been a 12 or 13 hour work-day. The end of the season is a relief. In my free time, I'm going to start training for a marathon, and I'll still have bucketloads of free time left over. So anyway, when I mentioned my plan to listen to my ipod while on the bus, several friends (in the context of several different conversations, mind you) accused me of being a bad teacher. I don't think anyone actually beleived that I would do something like that. Well, for everyone's information, I did.

I'm accused of being a bad (read: lazy, less holy) teacher mostly by first years, both tfa and mtc, when I mention how I spent the day. I'm accused of being a bad teacher when I don't grade students' papers or when my lesson plan seems too silent-and-working. I'm accused of being a bad teacher when I grade student's work in class, for that matter. I'm accused of being a bad teacher when I do any number of things that are essential to the preservation of order and sanity.

While my cross country team were being loud and obnoxious in the back of the bus, shouting things that would make a Hell's Angel blush, I was staring out the window and singing along to Justin Timberlake's new single. Does that make me a bad teacher? I don't know. This Saturday, I took my cross-country team to State Finals. What did you do?