Just thinking!!!

Wow!!! It really was a hard thing going back to work after having so much time off..I know...I know...the ones who don't have the luxury of having the time off that I do would say why all the whining we don't get that much time off. I mean who wouldn't want to have time to get to the things I can't when I am working. Like sewing, scrap-booking, cleaning out a closet or two, DE-cluttering the house or just a room, just have time to yourself, read a good book, catch up on TV shows, or just stay up past 8:00pm. These things I can't get to when I work full time.

I know...I know... you will say but you DO get to have time off..you get a winter break, a spring break, AND the summer off. And you would be right. I get to have the same days off as Beth does. I get to have long weekends. I get to have snow days off.

I also get to have 27 children every day for 6 and a half hours everyday....when they are sick, in a bad mood, whining, have runny noses, have them cough in my face, and when they are crying. I get to have them not listen, say no a lot, not pay attention, they may not be on their medicine that day and that will send them into a whirlwind all be it self. I have to discipline them or the whole class, try and get them to learn while they are playing, to fight fair, to get along, to share with others, to be able to be good students and get them ready for Kindergarten. I get to then come home and deal with the problems in my own house and life.

But what you don't see is teachers stay late to get caught up on the paper work they have. The mounds of prep work that goes into lessons plans. They give up their free time during the school year to grade papers, make lessons plans for the whole school year, figure out what works in teaching this class this year, the many sessions they attend to better themselves and understand how better help a child who may be having difficulties. I have seen another side to teachers that the public and parents don't get to see. They deserve everything they get and they would and will fight for any student in their classroom. The children become "ours" for 9 months out of the year the same as it takes a mother to give birth to that same child. We know each one as an individual and try and mesh that with our personalties and the other 26 children we may have in the class.

So the next time you run into a teacher in the summer and you think how lucky they are to have the summer off, know this they are probably planning the next school year in their spare time, and they do it because they have a love of children and a love to teach.