Real teachers

I will freely admit, gentle readers, that I have a biased attitude toward the teaching profession. I’m married to a teacher and, back in the antediluvian era of my college days, I was educated to be a teacher.
Fortunately, I came to the realization that I am not a teacher before I had a chance to do any damage to America’s youth. It takes a special kind of person to do that job, a kind of person that I, most definitely, am not.
Never the less, I maintain a deep and abiding respect for genuine educators, and a pathological disgust for people who pass themselves off as teachers when they are nothing of the kind. If such a reprobate as I am had the good taste to stay out of the classroom, anybody should be able to do so if they have no business being there.
Over the years, I have had occasion to enter classrooms, stictly on a temporary basis, and assault the sensibilities of impressionable young people with my own unique brand of pro-literary propaganda. Classrooms are very special places. However, as they say about New York City, it’s interesting to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Somewhere along the road, I came across a list of qualifications for a “real teacher.” Although written in a light-hearted vein, it contains more than a kernel of truth. Allow me to share it with you:
Real teachers ...
... grade papers in the car, during commercials, in faculty meetings, in the bathroom and (at the end of the six weeks) have been seen grading in church.
... cheer when they hear April 1 does not fall on a school day.
... drive older cars owned by credit unions.
... clutch a pencil while thinking and make notes in the margins of books.
... can’t walk past a crowd of kids without straightening up the line.
... never sit down without first checking the seat of the chair.
... have disjointed necks from writing on boards without turning their backs on the class.
... are written up in medical journals for the size and elasticity of their kidneys and bladders.
... have been timed gulping down a full lunch in 2 minutes, 18 seconds. Master teachers can eat faster than that.
... can predict exactly which parents will show up at Open House.
... volunteer for hall duty on days faculty meetings are scheduled.
... never teach the conjugations of “lie” and “lay” to eighth graders.
... know it is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission.
... know the best end-of-semester lesson plans can come from Blockbuster.
... never take grades after Wednesday of the last week of the nine weeks.
... never assign research papers on the last nine weeks or essays on final exams.
... know the shortest distance and the length of travel time from their classroom to the office.
... can “sense” gum.
... know the difference among what must be graded, what ought to be graded, and what probably should never see the light of day.
... will eat anything that is put in the workroom/teachers’ lounge.
... never plan discussions for the first period or co-operative groups for the 7th during an evaluation.
... know secretaries and custodians run the school.
... know the rules don’t really apply to them.
... hear the heartbeats of a crisis; always have time to listen; know they teach students, not subjects; and are absolutely non-expendable.
Can I get an Amen?