May 7: My Teaching Stats

I’ve seen people posting their teaching stats online this week, since it’s Teacher Appreciation Week or something like that. I suppose I shouldn’t grouse so much about how under-appreciated teachers are this year of all years, since it seems people all over the world are discovering what a difficult job it is while they’re quarantined at home and trying to keep their kids learning.

Anyway. Since I too often live by the tenet of why say something with ten words when you can use sixty (shout out to Josiah Bartlet for that one, or really Aaron Sorkin), here are my teaching stats, with a little additional background for each. 

Years teaching: This is the end of my 28th school year. My district sees this differently, which has been a point of contention for me for a long time now. They’ve always had my total years listed as one more than what I’ve actually taught. They count by calendar years, and I count by school years. Since I don’t count September - December of 1992 as an entire year, and, really, why would I, I think my way is better. Would they still give me credit for a year if I'd been hired in late October, or on December 17th, just because I made it in at the end of the calendar year? So, twenty-eight years. Still a long time.

Schools taught at: If you don’t count all of the schools I visited during the year I worked as a substitute — which I don’t — I’m one of those rare animals these days who has spent my entire career teaching at one school and one school only.

School Districts: Well, if I’ve been at the same school the whole time….

Number of classrooms: The one I started in - 1; the portable - 2; the one I moved back into across the hall from the one I started in - 3, the one next door to the one I started in, after that summer when my classroom sink leaked for most of August and destroyed the carpeting, which nobody realized for weeks because the doorway had been sealed off with heavy plastic following asbestos removal - 4; the one down at the opposite end of the building - 5; the biggest and best and most isolated room in the school with one more closet than every other room in the building - 6; the leftover art room right next to the girls’ bathroom - 7; the one that was designed to be a primary classroom so every surface in the room was seven inches lower than what I was used to - 8; back again to the same room at the opposite end of the building I was in before, and I’m counting it because I still had to pack and unpack everything - 9; the one I’m currently in - 10. 

Grades Taught: Hired in first, looped to third, spent a year as a 3/4 split, then up to fifth. Then in 5th for almost two decades, until the principal did some shuffling and I ended up back in third. Then looped to fourth. Then a 4/5 split. Then back to 5th, where I still am, and frankly, where I belong.

Principals: Three of them. All women, thank you very much. Don’t ever try to tell me women can’t be effective leaders.

States Taught In: Same school, same district, same state.

Students: Just about 1,350 students. I’ve looped with several so that might count as double dipping, but I’ve also had many years that involved trading classes for social studies or math groups or reading groups or whatever, so it balances out, and I count every kid I ever taught in any capacity. Or at least tried to teach. 

Licensed: Damn right I am. Grades 1-6. Thank the Lord above I'm not legally allowed to teach Kindergarten.

Highest Degree: I’ve been packing my MA for a good twenty-plus years now, with 60 bonus credits beyond that for at least fifteen. In other words, the highest amount of education I can get paid for under my contract. 

And, even though it isn’t included in the teacher stats template…

Teaching Awards Won: One. Not that it actually means anything about anything in the big picture, but it was kind of a fun and slightly uncomfortable moment. I figure if I managed to squeeze that factoid into my bio posted on the website of the literary agency that represents me, I might as well bring it up here as well. 

So there you go. Happy week, teachers. I hope you’re holding onto some kind of emotional anchor to get you through these last few weeks of distance learning. 

And it isn’t the kind of anchor that's going to lead to some kind of future alcohol dependency.