My Teacher's "Wish List"

          After a near-death (of the spirit and sanity) encounter with a parent and grandparent tag-team this week, I am writing down my wish list.  I know Santa is watching me, and my self-control and pleasant expression that remains intact until I get back into the privacy of my classroom--when it's empty--is evidence that I've not been naughty.  I'm always nice (at least I always have a hard, candy-coated nice exterior).  Because my job depends on it.

       So, since there is only a little more than a month before Christmas, I wanted to send off my list early.  These are things I would truly appreciate and use (not like those hideous hand-knit sweaters in old-lady colors and styles that I used to get), yet I know they'll be a challenge for the elves to hammer and glue-gun up.  And yet I am still asking for them...

photo by MADsLucky13

1.  Stop thinking I have the time and energy and inclination to plot with your child's  previous teachers from kindergarten, first, and second grade---along with the PE and Music teachers---and together, we form an evil scheme to paint an incorrect "picture" of your son or daughter. Your child's former teachers and myself do not stay up late into the night on the phone, planning how we are going to "get" your child.  There is no conspiracy swirling around, portraying your child as disruptive if they are not. Seriously.  I am so tired when I get home, I barely have the energy to take off my bra when I get home. I am too exhausted to carry out a vendetta against anyone, including your child.

2.  Chew me up without your child watching it.  Don't go off on me over the phone and allow your child to listen to it.  I have a thick skin.  My name has been scratched on bathroom stall walls and surprisingly, kids can't spell "when" correctly but there are other words they definitely can spell! I can take it.  What I can't take is you cutting my legs out from under me.  You undermine me when your child watches as you cuss me out and rant and rave and tell blatant lies.  When your kiddo sees me take that with a polite expression, it tells them they---kids--- can treat me in a similar manner.

Help me provide a "united front."  In public, portray the illusion that we are a team, working together.  In private, you can say anything you want.  I can take it.  Really.  I mean it...

3.  Come and spend a few minutes in my classroom before you decide I am the epitome of evil.  You may find out that your child is not the empty vessel just waiting to be filled with knowledge, as you previously thought.  You might just see that I beg and plead and cajole and bribe your child---and a few others---all day...many times a day.  If every teacher for the last three years has told you that your child has anger management issues/sexually inappropriate behavior/learning obstacles/problems focusing for more than 1.7 seconds at a time...Perhaps it's not evil intentions on my part.  Perhaps you need to turn and really look at your child...

4.  Be an advocate for your son/daughter.  Come up to the school like a rocket because they are reading two years below their grade level.  Yell and scream because you are demanding ways YOU can help them.  Don't holler because I took a bag of chips from your offspring after they were eating them in the middle of my math lesson instead of paying attention and then lied about it.  There are things that are scream-worthy. A bag of Flamin' Hot chips is not.

5.  Take your child to the cultural things like the free museums and the zoo and the nature centers. Expose them to the world in kid-friendly ways. Watching R and X-rated movies is not usually often  ever appropriate for third graders  second graders  first graders   kindergarteners kids.  (Even if you view them during your "family time," it's still warping their minds.)  Talk with your children. Engage in conversations with them.  Ask how they feel and what they think and what they dream of becoming.

       Santa, I know this is a lot to ask for.  So perhaps you could bring one of the above things to me this Christmas, and next year, perhaps another, so by the time I retire, my wish list will be fulfilled?