Sick of Teaching

See, that’s how bad off I am.  I meant to say, teaching is sick.  No, that’s still not right.  I mean teaching WHILE sick.  Yeah, that’s right…. I think.

This has been quite a week...

I will begin by saying, I have not been ill for quite some time.  All through student teaching I kept my health.  As I began my own teaching journey, I withstood the onslaught of sneezing, snot-dripping, grimy-hand-bearing, nose-picking, first graders.  I am a bit of a drill sergeant where hand washing is concerned, but this is not a hospital, and I can’t expect a sterile environment.  The state of North Dakota requires me to get in a little education as well.

If I catch one of my precious nose-miner going for the gold, I send them to the bathroom to wash, straight away, but I’m sure the ratio of teacher-caught pickings vs. actual digs is disproportionate.  That means that everything that is touched thereafter is a breeding ground for Germville (hey, sounds like a good Facebook game…). 

I have been infinitely lucky to of stayed illness free, but all good things must come to an end.  Alas, I felt last Saturday as if my back muscles were leaping over hot coals and Sunday awoke to what my father used to call, the “creeping crud.”  That’s Missouri-ese for “sick.” 

This is where professionalism is called into play.  Monday was a pretty good day, but nine first grade Mexican Jumping Beans had me worn out by mid-afternoon and I suddenly wasn’t feeling so well. 

Tuesday was worse yet.  Achy muscles, congestion, chills… I was feeling like I had run head first into the proverbial moving train. Probably some deadly form of small pox or bubonic plague.  I can feel my life ebbing away.  OK, a LITTLE theatrical...

Don’t ask me why I went to work everyday if I felt so crummy.  Just please don’t ask.  OK, fine.  I’ll tell you why.

The retiring teacher whose place I took, told me that in her thirty-nine years of teaching, she only missed four days of school due to illness.  I am astounded by that.  She did NOT say that she was only sick four days in thirty-nine years.  Quite the contrary.  She followed her amazing confession with, “it was always just easier to come to work than to miss it.” 

That hit me on the head like pigeon poop in the park.  You have to understand my perspective and background here.  I have been a stay-at-home mom for many years.  If I had a day of feeling “puny” (another southern Missouri colloquialism), I had only to stay in my jammies and nap when the babies did.  It didn’t always work out quite that conveniently, of course, but my schedule was a tad more flexible then than now.

My life has changed dramatically.  Getting up and going to work everyday has not been as hard as I feared, but doing it while feeling like I had cement blocks strapped to my legs is a horse of another feather (whatever THAT means).  But to my credit (or idiocy), I did it.  And I fully get now the wisdom of my predecessor.  It is a major pain in the you-know-what to miss a day of work.  Not just trying to fill in a last minute sub on how to occupy my Little Darlings for a full day, but the fall-out of the day after is just as devastating.  It really is easier to hide the under-eye circles, keep a box of tissues close by (the lotion kind), and try not to honk a lugie onto my principal’s foot.

Yesterday morning when the evil alarm clock screamed in my ear, it was all I could do to haul my middle-aged, nearly fifty-year-old carcass out of the warm cocoon of my bed.  My brain and my body went to war.  “Get out of bed!” my brain screamed.  “I don’t want to.  I can’t do it, I’m too sick,” my body shot back.  “I said it’s time to get up!” my brain ordered once more.  “Make me!” shouts my rebellious body.  “OK, I will, you idiot.  I’m the BRAIN!”  And that ended it.  I reluctantly began my day.

I thought I had been doing my job fairly well until yesterdat afternoon, when a glass of cold water was thrown in my face (probably relieving my fevered brow, but a shock nonetheless).

After lunch and recess, we were sitting on the rug having science time, when one little sweetheart declared, “Mrs. Dahl, I don’t feel good.”  Sure enough, he was a white as wool.  I have become adept at mastering the shell game where school illness is concerned.  “I’m sorry to hear that, sweetie.  Can you try to make it until the end of science?”  This little diversion tactic will separate the truly ill from the fakers.  After an hour of doing something to take their mind off their illness, if they still come with the same complaints, then I know it is probably the real deal.  Unfortunately for me, that has also come back to bite me.  I once held off a case of nausea  a little too long and ended up with a river of puke from my room to the boys john.  I should have called mom sooner on that one…

My little charge did not look at all well, so I found someone in the building to comfort him while I finished my reading intervention group.  His Comforter came to me about ten minutes later and said that after calming down a few minutes, he confessed that he was worried that he was going to get in trouble.  I’ll spare the details, but an incident had happened the day before between three of my students that I felt was serious enough to warrant some investigation, but frankly, had not been on the ball enough to follow through with just yet.

Now an entire day had elapsed and this poor Lamb had literally made himself "sick" with worry over it.  “Be an adult, Vonda!” I shook my finger in my own face and took the bull by the horns. 

It only took about fifteen minutes of Perry Mason-style investigating to get to the bottom of it and even produce a tearful admittance (I always love honesty and cannot help but quietly applaud it), and finally the truth bubbled to the surface. 

My sweating defendant was declared “not guilty” by the judicial system (me), and the others dealt with appropriately.  The color returned to his drawn face and his sunny smile once again broke through the clouds.

Lesson learned for Mrs. Dahl:  it is not enough to just show up for work.  I have to also “be in the moment” non-stop.  These are formative days and lessons for my first graders.  I sometimes forget how important my role is in their lives and futures.  It is more than a little sobering to think of it that way, but I well remember my first grade teacher and things she said and did where I was concerned.  I spent a fair amount of my first grade year staring at the chalkboard up-close and personal, the equivalent of the old “dunce cap” shaming, I suppose. It would be nice to say I was up there to show off my academic brilliance.  Alas, not so.  I guess she thought that if I stared at the color green long enough it would drive the devil from my trouble-seeking first grade body.  It must have worked because I am an upstanding citizen today.  She probably saved me from a life of crime and incarceration.

So as the “Week That Never Ended” wound down and it is now Saturday with a big snowstorm in the forecast, I am thankful for a good work ethic, but I am also aware that when wearing my Teacher Shoes, it is not ever about me.  My children must be looked out for, cared about, and given top-priority every minute I am there.

Today is about me.  I sense a steaming cup of French Vanilla tea and a Law and Order marathon in my immediate future.  Can I measure up to my predecessor’s near flawless record?  I doubt it.  But it is a worthy goal to strive for.  I don’t have to be “Mrs. Dahl” again until Monday morning. 

Today Jack McCoy needs me…