Entry # 33:
Teachers Anonymous?
I discovered today that gardening is a lot like teaching. As I hoed, pulled,
swatted mosquitoes, and dumped pile after pile of weeds into trash bags,
connection after connection drifted through my consciousness.
My husband and I inherited a beautiful garden when we purchased our home.
The gentlemen who owned the house before us were garden enthusiasts, and,
according to several neighbors, they spent hour after hour tending to it.
We have hostas, daffodils, lavender, hydrangeas, a small pond, and a host
of other plants we have decided are "real" plants and not weeds.
It is beautifully laid out and organized, and somehow, despite our attention
(or lack thereof) to it, most of it has survived.
Not that you would have been able to recognize any of it prior to this afternoon.
Weeds of all shapes, sizes, and colors had invaded over the past few weeks,
rendering our backyard into some sort of urban jungle. I need to mention
that we neither enjoy nor have the vaguest clue about gardening. My husband
and I did know the task was going to get harder the longer it took us to
address it, but we did not manage to attack it until today when we decided
that we were going to be voted off the block if we did not take care of
business.
Play now, pay later
As we worked, I kept asking my husband and myself why we had waited so long.
If we had come out sooner, the weeds would not have spread out so widely
or grown so tall, or better yet, had we been proactive and spread mulch
as soon as it began to warm up, the weed problem would have been negligible.
But no, we put the task off. Play now, pay later.
But wait. It was not as if we were lying around eating bon-bons or watching
TV. I thought through all we had done this past week alone -- cleaning the
house, attending a block meeting, going to band practice, plus late committee
meetings, planning lessons and grading assignments -- and I realized that
we are busy people. Although the garden was an important task, so were all
of the others. What could possibly give?
I promised there was some connection to teaching, though I must confess
it feels good to share my home ownership woes with the world. Although every
task that comes our way is important and necessary, there must be some balance
in how we address them or we end up with overrun gardens, six loads of laundry,
or three weeks of grading to do.
I have been thinking a lot about how immersed I am in my job and the peripheral
stuff that comes with it. Most of it is by conscious choice, but I worry
that although my choices may initially benefit me and my students, they
will eventually come back to haunt me because there is little balance in
my life.
I have forgone spending time with my husband because I was searching the
'Net for lesson materials or was posting to the MiddleWeb listserv,
I have taken papers to grade on spring break vacations and professional
books to read on summer vacations, and I have overextended myself on committees
and projects at school that required me to stay late or take extra work
home. All of this on top of the regular workload of a teacher.
A professional teacher's life
I do not think I am that unusual. As I listen to other teachers I know or
read the comments of those on the listserv, I see others in the same boat
and still more that seem to have taken on even more responsibility. It feels
natural to take this all on, and I do not even resent the time it takes
because I am so completely in love with what I do.
Still, I am sure this cannot be healthy for me, my students, or my relationships
with others. My greatest fear is that I will burn myself out or that I will
bury myself so deeply in my work that I will lose sight of the very reason
I push myself to learn more or take on more work -- my students. I know
that when we put all our eggs into one basket, so to speak, we are endangering
the other areas of our lives.
I do not know how to create a balance between work and home. I know that
I need to, but where are the experts and their books to help me with some
"Teachers Anonymous" twelve-step program?
Furthermore, many parents, administrators, politicians, and society are
all convinced teachers are not doing enough as it is. We are continually
bashed and criticized in the press while lawmakers and citizens committees
and administrators create new laws, responsibilities, and programs for teachers
to carry out. So how can I just quietly put my things away to do something
other than think about my job?
Until someone comes up with an answer, I guess I will have to figure it
out for myself. With my garden (my house, my laundry, the shopping...) I
know I am going to have to find a balance to avoid another hostile takeover
of my backyard. We have already decided to spend a little time every week
maintaining the work we did today, and we are going to attempt to be proactive
by generously layering mulch around the plants. We will balance the garden
work with the rest of our responsibilities.
Now, if I could just figure out how to apply that new knowledge to my professional
life.
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