Dear Teacher Lying Awake at Night,
I don’t have any scientific research to prove it, but the anatomy of a teacher’s brain must look different from the average brain. I’m convinced if you cracked open the skull of a teacher, you would find a surging pink mass filled with vibrant sticky notes and rusty paper clips. Teachers need these office supplies for logic and organization. Sometimes they help, but other times, the toxic dance of midnight questioning begins, questions like, Did I tell second period their test is Wednesday? Did I turn off my candle warmer? Did Heather leave her story on my desk or the back table?
Then you get stuck on a question like, Where could my stapler be? Then that one question takes you down a long and spiraling road.
I bet Jonathan took it. I bet it’s in his backpack. He probably thinks it’s funny. I wonder if I could write a referral even if I don’t know for sure he did it? I could call his mom. I wonder if she would do anything about it? I wonder if I called him in before school and point blank asked him if he would admit he took it or would he lie to my face?
Then you camp out about why he might lie. Is he having issues at home? Is he trying to be accepted by his peers? Then you consider reading Langston Hughes, “Thank You Ma’am,” so he can learn stealing is wrong. However, if it's more about acceptance than theft, you consider putting him in a group with some of the cool kids to see if his self confidence might improve. You finally decide this is the perfect solution, but it means you need to rearrange your reading groups.
You start sorting the names in your head and begin a mental checklist for ensuring everyone gets to his new seat without chaos. You decide to print numbers to give them as they enter class, but you remember you have a parent teacher conference in the morning, which means you won't have time to print before class starts. You finally surrender and get up to type the numbers because you'll never get back to sleep anyway. It's 4:57 a.m. You are hating yourself, but you know it will make life so much easier tomorrow. Plus, the sacrifice is worth it if Jonathan feels accepted and learns stealing is wrong.
The next morning you run to class because the conference went longer than expected, and you still need to pass out those darn numbers. Finally, everyone settles in when you hear a girl in the back interrupt. "Hey Miss, I just found this stapler on the back bookshelf. You must have left it back here when you were stapling our rough drafts. Isn't it the stapler you were looking for yesterday?"
-CDB