Friday, August 8, 2003
Friday, August 8, 2003 |
| 3,2,1,
back to school: Teachers, students, parents count the days
By Rick Ryckeley The Wife is counting down the days. Three days and counting until school starts. Summer break is almost over, and teachers must all go back to school bummer, especially if you're married to a teacher. Gone are the lazy days of summer, where the only thing stressful in a teacher's life is whether Starbucks will run out of mocha-chocka-latta thingies, ground fresh from imported dark brown coffee beans, before she gets there for her daily infusion of caffeine. Well, that and whether "Trading Spaces" will be a rerun or not. Yes, I can say from firsthand experience, the stress level of a teacher is very low during the summer. Not so when they return to school. One of the primary reasons for the increased stress level of teachers as they return to the hallowed halls of academia is no 2:00 mocha-chocka-latta thingies. You want happy and productive teachers? Well, then do I have a solution for you! Just build a Starbucks in every teacher's lounge in this county. Might as well try that the 5-percent pay raise they got from the state last year sure didn't help much to boost their morale. Teachers indeed have a stressful job when they go back to school, especially high school teachers. Just ask yourself this question, "Would you want a job spending eight hours a day, five days a week with a room full of teenagers?" Yep, I thought not; neither would I. The Boy is the only teenager in our house, and recently I've thought about moving while he's back at school and not telling him where we moved to. Half the time he's difficult, and the rest of the time he's impossible, but he's mine, so I guess I'll keep him. Besides, he sure comes in handy when we have new office furniture to put together and computers to hook up. But that was a funny story last week. This is the sad back-to-school story. The Boy is counting down the days. Three days and counting until school starts. Summer break is almost over and teenagers must all go back to school. Finally! This is especially if you have a bored teenager or two lying/rolling around the house. But before he goes back to school, we must make that ever-important trip to buy new clothes and shoes. The Boy whines, "But Daaad, I can't wear the same stuff I wore last year." I tried to convince him that he doesn't need anything new, that his old stuff is just fine. Nope, didn't work. "Son, you don't even play basketball. Why do you need basketball shoes, much less a pair that cost $150?" He was relentless, and after two hours of listening to his very compelling argument why he needed the $150 basketball shoes, we were off to the store. It was the only way I could get him to stop arguing. At the high-priced shoe store The Boy ran into five of his classmates, all buying the same $150 basketball shoes. None of them play basketball either. Looking around, I notice they all seem to bring at least one disgruntled parent with them to enjoy their shoe buying experience and, of course, to pay the bill. How thoughtful of them. The Boy? Well, he paid for his own high-priced basketball shoes out of the money he earned putting together our new office furniture and two new computers, but there I go again. The funny story about the office was last week. This is the sad story about teachers and kids going back to school. After paying for the shoes, I let The Boy drive me back home. (There's not enough ink and paper to describe that experience.) On the way back I said, "Son, I don't know why you had to have such expensive shoes. Back-in-the-day, my mom would spend $50 and get four pairs of school shoes." "Daaad, you're not gonna tell me another one of your stories, are you?" "Well, as a matter of fact, son, I am." The school bell rang at 8 a.m., sounding the official start of my fifth-grade year at Mt. Olive's Elementary school. This is gonna be a great school year; everyone who is cool is in our class and most live on Flamingo Street. My best friend Goofy Steve sits to the right of me; Neighbor Thomas sits to the left. Bubba Hanks is behind me, and Preston Weston is in the next row to the right and three seats up. Sitting behind him is my girlfriend Candi. Maybe this will be the year that I tell her that she is, in fact, my girlfriend. Yep, a great class to be in except for two things. The first is that the resident bully from Flamingo Street occupies the last seat in the last row of the classroom. That person is none other than my arch nemesis Down-the-Street Bully Brad. Looking over my shoulder I see he's just sneered a crooked smile my way. It will be interesting how I'm gonna stay out of his way and survive this year. The second thing not so great about our fifth-grade class is our teacher Old Miss Crabtree. I heard she doesn't like boys, and with a classroom full of 20 boys and 5 girls this year's gonna be interesting. Looking back, that was Miss Crabtree's last year of teaching. I wonder if our class had anything to do with that or she was just counting the days also until she could retire. [Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at firemanr@bellsouth.net.] |