‘Teacher Man’ is the last book that I read and enjoyed a lot. If you are or were a teacher in N.Y.C. you will relate to some of the situations nicely depicted in the book by Mr. McCourt, the English teacher at a couple of high-schools in N.Y.C. Well, he was an English teacher at a vocational school in Staten Island but also at a high-school like no other: Stuyvesant. Anyway, here are some of my favorite quotes from this book:

“At the end of a school day you leave with a head filled with adolescent noises, their worries, their dreams. They follow you to dinner, to the movies, to the bathroom, to the bed”.

“Facing dozens of teenagers every day brings you down to earth. At 8 a.m. they don’t care how you feel. You think of the day ahead: five classes, up to one hundred and seventy-five American adolescents; moody, hungry, in love, anxious, horny, energetic, challenging”.

“Every class has its chemistry. There are some classes you enjoy and look forward to.They know you like them and they like you in return. There are some classes you wish would take the ferry to Manhattan and never return”.

“Teaching is bringing the news.”.

“You have to make your own way into the classroom. You have to find yourself. You have to develop your own style, your own techniques. You have to tell the truth or you’ll be found out”.

“This is the situation in the public schools of America: The farther you travel from the classroom the greater your financial and professional rewards”.

“If you asked the boys and girls of Stuyvesant High School to write three hundred and fifty words on any subject they might respond with five hundred. They had words to spare. ”.

If you work in the education field you probably feel a simmering energy. Yes, the school is about to start, students and teachers will return to school after the longest break of the year. The longer the break , the longer it takes to readjust to school.

The beginning of the school year is pretty crazy for a teacher as there are so many things to do. At the beginning of September you would have to redesign your room, do curriculum units, lesson plans, create charts to post on the walls, prepare the activities for the first days, get acquainted with the new protocol rules, bell schedule, begin implementing new school rules and procedures… Phew…

Anyway here’s a funny list by Jeff Foxworthy about how to tell if you are/were a teacher…

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TEACHER?

• You can hear 25 voices behind you, and know exactly which one belongs to the child out of line.
• You get a secret thrill out of laminating something.
• You walk into a store and hear the words “It’s Ms/ Mr. ______________,” and know you have been spotted.
• You have 25 people that accidentally call you Mom/Dad at one time or another.
• You can eat a multi-course meal in under twenty-five minutes.
• You’ve trained yourself to go to the bathroom at two distinct times of the day: lunch and prep period.
• You start saving other people’s trash, because most likely, you can use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the classroom.
• You believe the teachers’ lounge should be equipped with a margarita machine.
• You want to slap the next person who says, “Must be nice to work 7 to 3 and have summers off.”
• You believe chocolate is a food group.
• You can tell if it’s a full moon without ever looking outside.
• You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, “Boy, the kids sure are mellow today.”
• You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behavior when you are out in public.
• You believe in aerial spraying of Ritalin.
• You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
• You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own children.
• You can’t pass the school supply aisle without getting at least five items!
• You ask your friends if the left hand turn he just made was a “good choice or a bad choice.”
• You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils.
• You are secretly addicted to hand sanitizer and finally,
• You understand instantaneously why a child behaves a certain way after meeting his or her parents.
• You see red every time someone says, ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.