On Misbehaving

I used to say that when my kids had the day off of school for teacher in-service day that it was actually "teacher party day."

Yeah. Not so much.

I had to sit through a hideously boring, demeaning seven hour long in service today. In case you didn't know this, and if the subject ever comes up for you, grown people do not like when someone counts them down (four, three, two, one) to silence like a bunch of first graders. It's ridiculous. Also, don't talk in the same sing-songy voice you used when you used to teach second grade if you now teach teachers. Your regular grown-up voice is just fine, thanks.

I left the meeting irritated, which isn't probably a good thing. I also left with even less faith that I'll be able to send Nick to the high school next year then I had when I came in. Blank stares when I brought up the fact that my resource students have to stop working to perform janitorial duty every day just before lunch. Pats on the shoulder when I discussed how disappointed I was in losing my job because my student is moving. A complete lack of understanding about the fact that our class HAS NO TEACHER. And the woman they've hired to be the teacher? She DOESN'T HAVE A DEGREE IN EDUCATION. How is it possible that I'm the only one that's bothered by that???

Oh yeah. I'm the only one with a special needs child about to finish up the eighth grade.

See. I was perfectly fine this morning. Now I'm all riled up.

At lunch I saw a bookmark with the title of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's book, Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Ulrich also wrote the book A Midewife's Tale, the diary of Martha Ballard (a colonial midwife), which I read for my history class. For some reason I connected with that bookmark, even though I haven't read the book. I haven't stood up for my students regarding their forced labor because I don't want the principal to think I'm a trouble maker. That I'm not well-behaved.

I don't want to be well-behaved. I want to be the woman who stands up for what is right. I want to be a boat-rocking trouble maker, damn it!

So, while I've been thinking about Ulrich's slogan (a sentence she wrote in graduate school in the 70s), I realized the irony between my newfound desire to misbehave and my intended job as a school teacher. I want to be the kind of teacher that encourages students to not take things lying down. I do NOT want to be the kind of teacher that says "four, three, two, one" and flashes the lights just when the conversation is getting good.