I'm a teacher. Before you start applauding, save it. It's not the noble profession people make it out to be. Most days it's crowd control with paperwork. They say children are our future. Based on some of my classes, humanity's got a fascinating few decades ahead. Every September I convince myself this year's lot will be different. By October I'm explaining, for the third time that morning, why setting fire to a worksheet doesn't count as "creative thinking." Optimism's a nasty habit. Mine dies a slow, predictable death every term. I've learned that patience isn't something you're born with. It's something that's beaten into you one pointless staff meeting and one parent email at a time. Somewhere between marking essays that read like ransom notes and listening to excuses so imaginative they deserve literary awards, I stopped being surprised by anything. Sarcasm keeps me employed. If you can laugh after confiscating your fifth mobile phone of the day, you're either mentally resilient or clinically detached. I've stopped asking which. Don't get me wrong, I like the job. Well... I like about seven percent of it. The rest is surviving long enough to make it to Friday without saying the one thing that's been on my mind since Monday. Still, every now and then a student actually learns something. It's rare enough to feel like witnessing a solar eclipse, but it happens. And I suppose that's why I keep coming back. Either that, or I've become so institutionalised I wouldn't know what peace and quiet looked like if it walked into my classroom and handed in its homework on time.
