It's really awkward to see your teachers cry. When you're younger, you think there's something special about them. Something almost indestructible about them. They don't feel human. Or maybe that was just me. I used to think teachers slept in the school. I had no idea they had another home. When you're younger, you see them as a mother almost. You draw pictures for them (Guilty. I did in 1st grade. It was a Halloween picture...for Halloween). You give them a Valentine's Day card. A birthday card.
Then you grow older. You move up a grade and you no longer start seeing a teacher as a mother (or father). You learn that they go home every day after you leave. Some have a family of their own. They feed their kids, watch TV, grade some papers. For some, you start to gain respect for them. Every teacher up to 4th grade, I referred to them as, "teacher." "teacher, can I go to the bathroom?" "teacher, Mark is calling me names." Then, you realize it sounds stupid, so you call them by their names. Mr. Piegari. Ms. Gothelf. Mr. Kellerman. But some things never change. "Can I go to the bathroom?"
You learn that they're human too.
So how do we make them cry? Here's a list:
z.) Don't do your homework. This only works if you're in some kind of honors class. You know, where the teachers are more likely to care if you do your homework. When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who everyone was afraid of. She had that presence. The kind that if you didn't do your homework, you'd be nervous the entire day even if you weren't in her class yet. Then, English period. Your legs would feel weak as soon as you walked in the door. She cried one day. She gave us a poem to annotate and most of didn't do it or did a half-assed job. We had been given a lot of homework from our other classes, so we could put English on the bottom of our priority list we thought.
She put the poem on the overhead. She asked questions about it. Silence. Maybe one answer. Another question. More silence. Another. Silence. Tears. She cursed. Her nose being caressed by a tissue. Her face was as red as her hair. I felt bad. Its weird, you can't help but think it's all your fault when a teacher cries. Like if everyone else did the work, but you, and now you all wont get to go to that field trip. Maybe there were other things going on at her home, I thought. But I never want to see a teacher cry in a classroom again, it's too uncomfortable. I mean, what do you say?
y.) Become her friend and make her quit. Not really, don't make her quit, but I have a story. In middle school, a new teacher started to work there around the middle of sixth grade. She was young, and all the girls talked to her for advice. She became very close to us. She would stick up for us when we would get in trouble and the principle had something bad to say. Until one day, she got a job at some high school. "I thought I wasn't going to like teaching at a middle school, but I did," she said with tears running down her cheeks. It was the last day of school and also her last day in that school. All the girls were crying. Except maybe a couple who didn't care. I'll admit, I felt something, but it was more because almost everyone was crying. It was like watching a sad movie and you wanted to cry, but your friends were around so you put your hand on your face like if you were resting it, but you were totally trying to hide the fact that you were crying.
These are really the only ways a teacher would cry in class. I mean anything else they would probably just cry at home. But I've had two other ways that they almost or could've cried.
x.) Mess with them. I'm not going to mention the teacher or the grade because this is just too disgusting and would probably scar that teacher for life if they read this. BUT, here it goes. Some girls decided it would be funny to spit in the teacher's glass of water when he/she stepped out of the classroom. I remember sitting there. Watching. The feel of adrenaline mixed shame. My life is full of shame. They mixed the water and saliva with a pencil and sat down. The teacher came in, took a sip. He didn't notice. My heart was pounding for some reason. It's a weird feeling. Its guilt. Its adrenaline. Knowing that I watched it happen and didn't do anything. He stepped out again. They then poured in a few drops of some liquid that apparently made you "excited." He/She took another sip. The whole class was silent. And he/she had no idea. I never want to be a teacher. Ever.
 |
| (Like this, but with clay.) |
w.) Throw things at them behind their back. Someone threw a small ball of clay at a sub. She had really short crazy, blonde hair. like the kind that artists have to make them stand out. It was art class. We had found some clay. It was middle school. We were throwing clay everywhere. But only small chunks so the sub had no idea. She saw a small piece land near her, just missing her shoulder. She exploded. I felt bad. Here she was substituting and was probably happy. She was probably excited. And we ruined her day. She probably went home and told her husband or friends all about it. Some of them would laugh. And some of them would take her out to dinner to take her mind of it. Maybe.
So, don't ever make your teachers cry. You'll only feel terrible about it. Trust me, I do. You feel evil almost. Even if you had nothing to do with it directly. Teachers go through a lot. It seems like an easy job when you think about it. "Oh, just talk for a few hours and your done." But it's more than that. Some cry. Some yell. They're just like everyone else. They want to be happy. They want the day to run as smoothly as possible so they can go home hoping they made a difference that day.
I can picture it now. The final bell rings. No tears were shed. She walks through the empty hallways with the smell of school still in her nose. She goes down the stairs with her bag on her shoulder. Maybe runs her fingers along the wall. She drives home, maybe in the rain. I like the rain. She takes out her keys and drops them. But she picks them up with a smile. She opens the door, turns on the lights. Maybe she lives by herself. Her home smells like the house she lived in as a child. Fast forward. She climbs into bed. She's tired. Happy that the kids learned something. Happy that the kids listened. Happy that no tears were shed. Happy that there was never or would ever be a post about how to make your teachers cry. And she falls asleep without realizing it. The way it should be.
___
However, it's okay to make them cry by following me on Twitter! Tweet
No comments:
Post a Comment