It's Stood the Test of Time

I had a student teacher in 2007-- a really good one-- and I agonized over what to buy her for a congratulatory gift at the end of her tenure with me. “How about a Barnes and Noble gift card?” a colleague suggested. “No, it has to be something she can keep,” I thought.

The gift needed to be like the apple.

I have on my desk an entirely basic ceramic apple. It's complete with a nondescript stem, and sits about 3 inches tall in between my tissue box and three- hole- punch. It probably looks really generic on my desk-- a teacher's apple: what cutting edge décor.

The ceramic apple has traveled with me from Smithfield, RI-- where I received it-- to my first job in W., to my first desk in the old building of my current job, to my barely used work station in our top- of- the- line, 21st- century, bastion of technology that is the new building. I've dusted it several times, and placed it in various prominent positions on said desks, but it looks the same as when I got it in 2000.

My cooperating teacher Christine bought me the apple-- along with a nice pen (though I have no idea where that went), and probably some other things as she bid me farewell and sent me off into the world of teaching. I thought the apple a kind gesture, but I didn't think it would last long. Surely I'd clumsily shatter it in a move, or a kid would bump into it, or I'd slide it too near the edge of the desk and it'd find itself in ruins on the classroom floor. I've lost mugs, a desk clock, and a few other gadgets to classroom accidents over time, but the apple is in tact. It just sits. Still bright red but basic, it sits.

Each year when I set up my room, I carefully arrange my personal affects: I need a catch- all basket on the desk that houses scrap paper for hall passes, white- out for neurotic kids, and scissors for when the students need only a skinny column of paper to write their quiz answers. Next to that, I need a ceramic bowl with name cards so I can call on kids. Then there is the 3- hole punch and the tissues, and my poetry blocks, with which I can have some fun arranging words as a respite from grading. I also carve out space for the books we are reading and for stacks of “to grade” and “to return” papers. When I pull the apple out of the storage box each fall, I'm always surprised I still have it.

This trinket, in addition to weathering many physical moves, has trudged with me through the emotional mire of the past 13 years. It's seen me through difficult conversations I've had to have with kids about their grades or their anorexia or their dad's complete and utter abandonment of them. Kids have shed tears near the apple, and I have too. I've sobbed over personal grievances, like finding out my ex had moved on to someone else fast, and over job frustrations, like the three or four times I've felt burned out and that I. Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Anymore. The apple has sat next to me when I napped at my desk while pregnant, and even once when I was hungover after St. Patrick's Day wildness. It's watched me race to get my semester and term grades in by 12 noon. It's heard me vent with fellow teachers about having no time to get all our administrative obligations met, and it's watched kids come and go for detention and extra help. The apple has seen thousands of kids during its life-- thousands have come and gone from my rooms, from class students to study hall inhabitants. The apple has probably laughed watching me scurry to get my objectives and agenda on the board before class in case an evaluator were to come in, and the apple has rooted me on when those evaluators did come to watch me. The apple has to be my most consistently supportive classroom pal.

Now, it's not because of my distaste for the martyr- mom syndrome (which I wrote a recent blog about), but I really hate when people say “Being a stay- at- home mom is the toughest job you could ever do.” I don't disagree that staying home to raise your kids is difficult-- of course it is. But I don't like classifying ANY job as the “hardest job ever.” I don't think you can possibly qualify any career that way. Because difficulty is such a relative quality. What's hard for one person might not be for someone else and vice- versa. I think being a surgeon would be unreasonably challenging, but maybe surgeons think custodians or airline pilots or news reporters have the toughest job. And so I scowl when people say teachers have the hardest jobs ever and that's why they should get paid more and blah- blah- blah. There are shizzy things about my career, but can anyone name a career that is exempt from shizziness?

So I hope I've made my caveat clear that I don't think teachers have it worse than the next person. (And we all know that teachers get the summer “off” [it's actually unpaid leave time, and many, many teachers have to work in the summer or take classes-- last summer was the first one in which I did neither of the two] but, yes, we have the opportunity to be work- free in summer). BUT I'm gonna go ahead and go to the “crappy things about teaching” segment for just a moment, because teaching is the only job I've known, and thinking about the cruddy stuff actually makes me feel even more relieved that the apple has been with me.

In the old building, we had no air conditioning. There were days in late August and in June when the classroom would be so sweltering that kids were nearly passing out. Paper fans only go so far. In school, we are run by bells. I can't go to the bathroom when I want to, and I can't make phone calls. Most rules that apply to kids apply to teachers too, so we can't have cell phones visible or drink anything that is not in a screw- top bottle or take a quick walk or go out for lunch. In fact, lunch is 22 minutes. (I now finish most meals in that time, and feel like a caveperson when I have scarfed down my food but nobody else around me at dinner has.) We have a Poland Spring water cooler, but we have to pay for it every month. Same goes for the “coffee club”-- you can pay, or bring your own K- cups. Once a year, we get a lunch provided (on Teacher Appreciation Day); other than that, you're on your own. There are no office snacks-- someone may treat the group to some munchkins and that's a very good day. Yes, we are “out” by 3 (that's still an eight- hour day, with only a 22- min lunch break), but we have after school contractual time we have to spend in the building, and I won't go into the grading you have to do on your own unpaid time because that's just a boring topic everyone has heard six ways til Sunday already. I read in some article that you field like 300 questions a day as a teacher. You are “on stage” for most of the day. You can't sit behind your computer and turn people off if you're in a bad mood. Kids can be terribly obnoxious and/ or needy. A lot of kids don't want to be in school, let alone discussing The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. There have been a few distinct times I have decided willfully that I can't do this job anymore. That I am giving up. But I'm still here. I know I love it deep- down, but anything you love brings along with it much stress, much tension, much frustration and even some tears.

And that's where it's kind of awesome that I can look back over some storms I've weathered as a teacher and be thankful that something always reeled me back in. I don't know what those somethings have been. I've just waited, and then I've felt better – I've decided I want to stick with it. The apple has never argued with me or told me I need to buck up, but it's just sat there-- maybe smirking-- knowing I'm going to come back to my senses eventually.

A couple years ago, I tried to find my cooperating teacher from back in 2000. She wasn't listed on the school's website anymore, and I wondered where she went when she moved on. I wondered if she had any other student teachers, and if she bought them the same apple, the old failsafe that any future teacher might appreciate. I bet she'd be surprised that what probably cost her 6 bucks is a permanent fixture on a now veteran teacher's workspace.

I'm not going to say the apple is a prized possession. I don't like anything particular about it, and I don't associate it with any specific fond memories. But it's stood the test of time. That mothereffer is a strong piece of ceramic. And despite its ordinariness, it's outsmarted me. It's still there. And I'm still there.

I don't remember what I ended up buying for my student teacher in 2007. I have no idea whether it was useful or interesting. While I remember putting time and thought into the gift, I guess it wasn't enough thought to make the image linger in my mind. Maybe it was entirely commonplace like my desk fruit.