Summers are generally project time for anyone who works in education. Much is made of “yeah, but you get summers off” when talking about what it’s like to work in schools, but what maybe people don’t realize —or maybe they do but don’t care —is that during the school year, particularly in special education, we work pretty much 24/7. We can’t leave work at work because it makes the job undoable when we’re there. We would, but we literally can’t. For me, in a job with a considerable amount of official paperwork that is constantly coming and going and screwed up needing fixed, there’s that in addition to regular duties. It’s hard, is what I’m saying, so when summer comes, there’s a lot of catching up to do with everything else.
I collect the boards that my son broke in tae kwon do in the same way that I collected his teeth when he was young and still have his first haircut in an envelope. The boards may be slightly less creepy, come to think of it, but the point is, perhaps I’m more sentimental than I’d like to be. When I told him I was making the bookends, he told me to throw them away. Part of me agrees —the idea was to save them for him, as they’re his. If he doesn’t want them, isn’t attached, that’s a good thing. He still has the knowledge that he did it —physical proof doesn’t matter so much. But the other part loves him and thinks, what if he changes his mind? It was easy enough to do. I just stacked the boards into two groupings and glued them (in the photo above, the two groupings are set up end to end). The splinters from where they split are still there, so they need to be handled with care. I debated about shellacking them, but opted for simplicity, particularly as he’s ambivalent about the whole thing. If he decides to throw them in the trash later, that will be up to him, and I’ll be fine with it. For now, here they are. I am very proud of him.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got at work was from a principal I worked with. She gave me an article (this is the best way to reach me, the written word —tell me something and it’s in one ear and out the other) on parenting and working as a teacher. It is impossible to be the parent you want to be and be a teacher. Has education made me a better parent? Exponentially. Has being a parent made me a better educator? Absolutely. The issue is resources. There is only so much time and energy to go around. I frequently work six days a week and much longer than contracted hours —again, during the day doesn’t work if all of the outside work doesn’t happen. It’s literally impossible. So what happened to my son while I was doing work for other people’s kids? He got dragged along. He probably got ignored, if we’re being honest. And while that teaches self-sufficiency, it doesn’t teach a young person that they are valued and loved. It’s easier now that he’s a teenager and I am deeply uncool, but you still need to be there.
And so, bookends.