Never Take Work Home with You

Never take work home with you. I'm a teacher by trade and that has been my philosophy since my first year of teaching. Never take it home with you, because, it will never make it out of the car. Knowing me I would have an accident and legal documents would be laying all over the highway. For nine years I have been able to hold to this sage advise.

But you must know having the philosophy, never take it home with you has some consequences. Consequence number one, the child that you can't stop thinking about causes your to arrive at five in the morning work on a solution. The copies you have not been able to make all week because the copier has been broke are finally being ran at nine at night. The papers you need to grade leave you in the building until four almost everyday. The standardized test you are hoping the students can pass leads you to work at six in the morning to create a plan of action. You find yourself watching your husbands band performing their half time show from your classroom on Friday night because you have lesson plans that have to altered to fit the needs of your students. Or my favorite, last night your husband calls to tell you he's taking the children to dinner and you burst into tears because you can finally sit down at four for the first time since you arrived at seven.

Being a teacher is not simple. The planning and the preparation take hours, not to mention the time that is needed to think through the plans of the low achieves that constantly have to be revised. Behavior issues take their toll on your sanity. If you are a sponsor or a coach you find yourself planning your second job as much as your first. There are days you are so dead on your feet you don't know if you can make it. You go to work so sick you can't move because you are responsible for these children. If your a parent your children suffer with you at the after school meetings, eating fast food in your classroom floor so you can finish the last bit of work that will only take five more minutes.

So would my life be easier if I took it home? Maybe, but now it's about my children. I know their teachers feel my pain and sympathisize with my concerns. I know that they are working as hard as I am without a lot of benefits.

I will say this is what I want to be. After the first full day of having my own classroom I ever thought it wasn't worth the sacrifice. My house stays a disaster area, the reastraunts in town worry when we're late for dinner, but it's still worth it. Now that football season is over with my work at home and school won't pile up as much because my husband and I will both be home to get the house back in order. My copies are made, my graphs are complete, I have turned in lesson plans for the remainder of the semester all in the name of, never take it home with you.