This couple weekends ago I took my annual Christmas shopping trip to Chicago and Michigan City. This trip is one of two trips that I get to take with my girls (who are also teachers) per year. It is one of those extremely rare times that we take time for ourselves, don't think about work, personal schooling or worry about what awaits us or how much our to-do lists have multiplied in the past 24 hours.
As I took in the unbeatable sights and sounds of a big city Christmas, my kids kept creeping into my mind- not just my toddler and Golden but my school kids.
As I saw perfect examples for my ART 8 perspective unit, I suppressed the urge to take a million photos.And I only made my girls stop for a few minutes in the sub-zero temperatures as I saw beautiful mosaic that would be perfect for my ART 7 collage unit or my ART 8 grade level farewell project. I didn't even make my pilgrimage to the enormous Dick Blick store....gasp! That is an art teacher sin!! I was bound and determined to really truly take time off.
Funny thing though......I can't stop being a teacher. I can't turn it off. My girls couldn't either. No teacher can, it is both the blessing and the curse we carry. Our kids are always on our minds. We hold our career that close to our soul. I think about my kids all the time- whether I want to or not. I truly believe that it is a calling to be a teacher. Only certain people can do our job, only certain people can always put other's kids in the front of their mind day in and day out, from September to June....and for everyone who thinks we get a 12 week vacation- we think about them then too!!! We think about the ones we have now, the ones we had and who have moved on and the ones we will see in the future. In this age of what seems like endless teacher bashing, no one seems to notice or care about this. And the mark of truly great teachers is that it doesn't matter to us, we don't need recognition for it- it's just what we do.
As I took in the unbeatable sights and sounds of a big city Christmas, my kids kept creeping into my mind- not just my toddler and Golden but my school kids.
As I saw perfect examples for my ART 8 perspective unit, I suppressed the urge to take a million photos.And I only made my girls stop for a few minutes in the sub-zero temperatures as I saw beautiful mosaic that would be perfect for my ART 7 collage unit or my ART 8 grade level farewell project. I didn't even make my pilgrimage to the enormous Dick Blick store....gasp! That is an art teacher sin!! I was bound and determined to really truly take time off.
Funny thing though......I can't stop being a teacher. I can't turn it off. My girls couldn't either. No teacher can, it is both the blessing and the curse we carry. Our kids are always on our minds. We hold our career that close to our soul. I think about my kids all the time- whether I want to or not. I truly believe that it is a calling to be a teacher. Only certain people can do our job, only certain people can always put other's kids in the front of their mind day in and day out, from September to June....and for everyone who thinks we get a 12 week vacation- we think about them then too!!! We think about the ones we have now, the ones we had and who have moved on and the ones we will see in the future. In this age of what seems like endless teacher bashing, no one seems to notice or care about this. And the mark of truly great teachers is that it doesn't matter to us, we don't need recognition for it- it's just what we do.