Usually when I bolt awake in the middle of the night, it’s because something is troubling me about my relationship with someone else—an unresolved problem with a student or colleague or parent or spouse or child. Last night I couldn’t sleep because of the simple fullness of my day, the sheer number and variety of persons and contacts and communications from fourteen hours on the go. Unusually full, but nothing unusually troubling—par for the course. And, really, many teachers handle more than this on many days.
I lie awake, reviewing the day; the persons, issues, ideas, demands, spool past me again and again. I meet four colleagues in the office to start the day, catching up on news—I was absent on Friday, a physics experiment set the fire alarm off, no one called the fire department, and very soon the school was full of firepersons and police persons. Today, the fire inspector is walking around with our buildings and grounds supervisor (a parent volunteer). The husband of a colleague will pick up a loom that’s been donated to the school. Financial aid forms, delayed from last week, will go out in today’s mail.
I teach two math classes in the morning—algebra 1 and algebra 2—at my tiny high school, to a total of nine students. Each class involves conversation with each student. One asks for a “kick start” to remember which buttons to push on the calculator. Two need help with the giggles. One can barely stay awake. One wants to know what I was like at his age. One wants to review why negative exponents are fractions. One shares a pastry with the class.
Then I attend our daily Morning Meeting, in which all the members of our school—25 students and teachers—greet each other, shake hands, hear news of the day, and recite the beginning of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” together. A handshake and some eye contact are a great way to assess each student’s presence, and, also, it’s good to see them.
I spend the rest of the morning in the office with our office assistant, the telephone, and email. This adds one face-to-face relationship and a dozen others with parents, strangers, graduate students, and colleagues at the graduate school at which I also teach. Three want updates on my progress reading thesis drafts. I get to email another to tell him his thesis is finally accepted, after four drafts. I’m invited to conference in Turkey in October. I imagine myself in Istanbul; I like it.
I meet a friend for lunch, director of an educational institute, to talk about a long-term research project that we’re planning. We run through where we’ve been, and look ahead to the politics of implementing the project. This talk is nitty-gritty and not as much fun as giving our ideas free rein. I run into four other friends and acquaintances; I live in a small town.
I drive to the theater where our students are rehearsing “The Tempest.” I sit with our director and watch the scene in which Caliban emerges from his cave, threatening and cursing Prospero, and leering after Miranda. Prospero instructs Ariel. The boy playing Prospero has enlisted in the army, a first in my years of teaching. The other students love and support him, but also question his decision. As Prospero, his care for his daughter and his power over Ariel and Caliban seem extra weighty, knowing that in a few months he’ll report for duty. Caliban is waiting for news of college acceptance. Ariel is heading to Germany for an internship in a few weeks, and plays her part like a teacher. Miranda is brilliant and sophisticated and charming; she is not typecast, and needs to act younger and more foolish. This is my favorite of all plays. My mother’s middle name was Miranda, and my daughter’s middle name is Ariel. I give notes and have to go.
I go home for a late second lunch with my son, who is home from college for midterm break. He’s barely awake, and we talk about articles he’s writing for campus publications. Then back to school for a faculty meeting with five teachers, discussing three students who face real challenges in life or school. One will be put on probation and be required to attend counseling to remain in school for the rest of the year. One has passed a drug test and seems on the straight and narrow. One is so thin-skinned that the wrong joke sends him into a rage, a rage that he shows to no one at school but vents at home. And then we hear from his parents. We organize internships, discuss our computer policy (kids spending too much free time on YouTube), and look at the schedule for the weeks ahead.
I drive to the local bike shop for the first group ride of the season, 20 miles in a paceline with 14 other riders, many of whom I know and chat with. Others I meet for the first time. It’s great to feel the cold wind and hear the crunch of gravel under our tires and the clicking of freewheels.
I change and return to school for a parents’ evening, two hours with a lengthy agenda, from the mundane—“please be sure your students are on time and that they bring their supplies with them to school each day”—to the difficult—updating parents on our revised drug and alcohol policy and discussing recent events with them. We’ve had one student withdraw rather than enter a process that would likely result in her expulsion from school for drug use; rumors are flying, and it’s difficult to put them to rest while respecting appropriate confidentiality and the family’s privacy.
After the meeting, three parents want to speak privately. One, the mother of the angry boy, schedules a meeting for later in the week. I go home, it’s 10 p.m., and my wife is asleep already. I inhale some chili—a bad idea; no wonder I’m awake now. I say goodnight to my son, and crawl into bed. Three hours later, here I am.
Removing overlaps, I spoke to about 80 different people today, more than usual, most of them face-to-face, a few on the phone. I knew most of them. About one-third were students, one-third were colleagues or parents, and one-third were friends. I sent about a dozen email messages, far fewer than usual. A good day, busier than most; no tragedies, no epiphanies. Few things finished or threads cut, just moving that rock up that hill, Sisyphus.
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