Sane to Know Insanity
I find humor in the remark people make about teachers having it easy. I mean, let’s face it, we have summers off, holidays off, and when natural disasters or a pandemic happens, we are given the order to stay home. We even get a spring break.
Ahhh… such a powerful matter of fact speech. And then, there’s me, just a spoiled brat teacher who gets to indulge in all of a teacher’s benefits and rewards.
I recall that conversation I had with a neighbor. I was a happy stay-at-home mom with my three oldest children. I had the system of staying home down. Wake-up to hit the gym, shower, make breakfast, take kids to school, shop or stay home, clean, prepare lunch and dinner, clean up, routine with husband and kids, night.
All of a sudden, a neighbor utters the remark, “You are young. You need to contribute to society.” The fact was, I had a college and teacher’s degree by the age of 22. However, through the blessings of God, I could focus on staying home for the family while my husband held his position as a software engineer. We had bought our first home and my children and husband were happy with our structure and routine.
As the children grew and were all starting to attend school, I could feel the anticipated change. I would no longer be needed with the home empty in the morning. The spoken words of my neighbor and there I was, suggesting to put my teacher’s certification into action.
Just as soon as I started teaching, I felt I had erred myself. What was supposed to be part-time teaching as a substitute quickly became a teaching position before the year even ended.
I thought I was ready. By the next year, I silently began to feel quite the opposite. Sure. I was going through the motion with planned lessons and structure down. My management was fine. I was well-prepared to get through each day to make it through each week. To this day, there is still one thing I don’t believe I could ever prepare enough for- the drastic surge of energy I would have to expel for all other children other than my own.
It was seeing what I had let go of to gain the ability to effectively teach- management of the home, that made me feel silently bitter as I (still) refuse to believe that by the end of the day, I would be running on empty. My anticipation to come home and to be with my own family was and always has been my greatest reward.
Sure. I still managed the morning breakfast, and structure was not fine-tuned, but still evident. However, there was a give in what seemingly was a perfected system.
The routine became broken up into fitting in not just the hours of teaching, but for any educators out there, the wear and tear of the heart, mind, body and spirit that one takes home under what I call the eminent curse of a teacher- caring. It takes everything to just decompress before heading home to face those that still need you most, your own family.
How I loved and still love to come home to see my children and husband. However, the bombardment of their lives and what has happened to them that day, not to their understanding or fault, is just a continuation of all the other tales I’ve heard all day.
My ears constantly are ringing with voices by the end of each school day. I come home with my heart still filled with emotions from whatever may have happened during first all the way down to the last period. And then, my children express their thoughts and their feelings due to their day and all that happened. My husband, my great friend, has just as much to share with me about his day.
Do I care to share anyone mine? Oh, goodness no. Why? Most always, I’m trying to “let go and let live” so I can release for the next day. Who in the world wants to hear a teacher complain? That’s like a soldier complaining about battles they have to fight or a surgeon having to whine about completing yet another surgery.
You embrace the sunshiny days, but know darn well you have always understood that the rainy days are when you will be needed most. In a classroom full of students, it is an average of 25 students all depending on just you alone to provide structure and stability for the time being they are with you, and to add, teach them something they can positively add to their learning repertoire.
Anyone who has taught long enough knows that each child exhibits hope you don’t just see a classroom full of students. Rather, students hope you see each of them individually, no matter the size of classroom full of character and personalities. The hope for such different mindset is truly that curse to not just care about teaching, but care about each you are teaching.
Each eyes look at you hoping you SEE them. And you try because of this. Every time a child walks in, you try. And then, you go home. More eyes look at you, counting on you that you SEE them ahead of all-the ones you hold dearest in your heart. Silently you battle the fight within, that voice telling you that while your family is what matters most of all and while you started with them in the morning, they get the leftover of you by the afternoon.
You try and listen to everyone’s stories. You try and feel everyone’s perspectives. However, you get this sense of desensitized state, as if you are emotionally spent, not wanting your family to know. You want them to feel that they are still the most important priceless gem to you in the whole wide world. However, deniably, you feel you are failing. That system you once had when it was just your family alone to focus on has now been shared with roughly a hundred more.
You want to believe you have it all together. Your children continue to succeed before your eyes because you emphasize greatness so, they must walk what you talk. Your husband continues to love and cherish you. And yet, they are all human, too. So, they catch the moments when you slip from your “perfection”. While you dislike when they call you out on it, the moments hardest to swallow are those times they lock eyes with you and then, look away because you missed their last goal kick or didn’t hear their punchline to their funny joke or couldn’t give them an opinion of what you should have been carefully listening to, but didn’t.
You try to not be resentful, but you, too, are human. So, in the silence of everyone’s seeming dissatisfaction of what you have become, you resiliently stand your ground and challenge their remarks and comments. Deeply inside, however, you are steadfastly trying to fight the undeniable truth that you have wondered why you are still, well, teaching.
Why can’t I just go in and teach the subject matter without feeling? Why can’t I just be without emotion?
That one who doesn’t have their learning materials out? Why should I care? That one with clothes clearly not washed. Why should I wonder? That child who is telling me things aren’t right in the home right now. Why is this my problem? That angry one. That sad one. That loud one. That quiet one. That sleepy one. Or that sleeping one. That fighting one. That seemingly worried one. That one. This one. Why should I care? I must be insane for still doing this.
My own children have it made. They have parents who love them and care for them no matter what. So many students, however, need you. Who will give them the same? Is it insane to still stay or sane for you to think you should leave? If you are sane enough to want to leave, then you are sane enough to stay. It’s a Catch 22.
So, there goes the days off here and there as you go through the frontline battles to find your sanity to return. And because you return, this proves you were never insane in the first place.
Catch-22. You are not insane if you can admit sanely enough why you shouldn’t be doing it.
That voice that pushes a teacher forth like a soldier once was noted to say, “If not me, then who?”
Take a day off, a week off, a summer off. Just come back. More are waiting for when you return. The battle goes on.
