I was absent from my teaching job the first 1/3 of the last school year This was because of what is called recovery. That was preceded by treatment, which took up a perfect 100% of my vaunted teacher’s summer. All this was in response to cancer, but cancer itself goes in a different box. My journey was all about treatment and recovery.
Incidentally, whereas treatment coincided with my summer, recovery aligned as perfectly with my store of 20 years’ of accrued substitute days. One could not ask for a smaller economic impact of illness.
Besides discomfort, an absolutely Olympic course of nausea, and losing 1/4 of my previous weight (sure am glad I was a bit plump going into this!), my worst enemy was depression.
All I could do about this was to take up walking as a main activity, but to do this, you first must get off the couch. There is no other way. One time, while discussing this, all I had to do was leave the couch to go to bed, and that first step was difficult. Asked about my dysphoria, I responded (and a critical and loving family member quoted me on this later in a rather Eeyore tone of voice), “I just want to get back to where I’m supposed to be.” At work. Teaching school.
When I did get back, I hit the ground running, though the schedule of the train I take and my cautious regard for my physical stamina had me practically working to rule. Working to rule is a labor tactic, on the low end of the spectrum opposite striking at the upper end. This is where teachers arrive at school at the time their official working day begins and leave when it ends. It’s a bit passive-aggressive, though one teacher I knew did it for their mental health. It works on the idea that one can hardly be expected to do this job in 7 hours a day. Alternatively, it forces one to get tasks done during the 4 hours per week of “prep time” allotted, or at recess and lunch. As with studying while working it forces one to manage time well.
I arrived 30 minutes before work hours (if the train ran on time!) and left 15 minutes after work hours ended.
I respected my abilities and limitations. It cost me, but it did not exceed those limitations. There was a certain amount of napping on the train home.
I salvaged what I viewed as the chaos various long term substitutes had left lacking, as they did, any kind of direction from me. I restructured the physical, procedural, and cultural classroom. By the way, we have rules about substitute teachers. It is actually prohibited for one sub to teach more than 30 days straight, I think it is. I was out about 60!
Substitute teachers are prone to bring with them ideas more oriented to rote learning, more fill-in-the-blank, do the homework assignment kinds of teaching. I strive to make learning constructive, that is, I seek for the student to construct their own meaning about what we are learning. This is not easy.
Add to this that the school year effectively ends in April, at about 5/6 of the way through the school year calendar. This is because standardized testing begins then. Students must know everything applicable to their grade by then. They spend 4 out of 5 mornings per week for 5 weeks straight taking these tests on computers. Third grade, which I teach, is the first time these students experience these tests. So, the heat was on. I think I did OK, and the results of those tests seem to corroborate that perception.
Last month, one of the teachers with whom I work most closely, and with whom I enjoy chatting, mentioned in passing that our principal thought highly of the way I handled my return. I suppose he’s seen a number of those returns. Not everyone has the underlying physical strength I have, and there have been some difficult returns that even I noted as an uninvolved observer. I could tell you stories.
The principal did not give the praise to me, but I heard it second hand a year later. In our business, giving praise is a crucial tool. If little Jimmy manages to pick up his pencil the tight way ‘round after a morning of acting like a toddler (this is no exaggeration for the 3rd grader I am thinking of), then, boy, you really speak up and praise him for that one little thing he did right! It’s a dereliction on the part of the principal not to have told me. Thing is, I am not upset at him for this.
Yes, the praise taken second hand, after the fact does make me the tiniest bit moist around the eyes, here’s what it made me realize: my motivation, my regulation, my praise, my criticism, all of this, it comes from me. I own it, I manage it, I’m responsible for it. Yes, this can be toxic if I am corrupted, lose perspective, or suffer from hypocrisy, but there you go.
I’m minding the store.
