1. You can walk into any store and find supplies for your classroom.
Have you ever walked into Target for milk and bread and end up with a basket full of items for your classroom? Teachers are constantly thinking of their students and their classrooms, no matter where they are. We always tell ourselves over and over that we will not buy anything, but we never fall to pick up something we do not really need.
2. You constantly think about your students and miss them on your days off.
Have you ever caught yourself missing your students, past and present, on your days off? Have you ever looked at something and thought about how much one of your students might like it? Have you ever seen a child in public and thought about how they look like one of your students or how much they are acting like one of them?
3. You walk into a bookstore to buy a book for yourself and end up buying a few books for your classroom library instead.
The last time you bought a book, was it for yourself or your classroom? I can’t remember the last time I bought a book for myself. Everything the last few months was for my classroom library or teaching related.
4. You spend your days off grading papers and writing lesson plans.
Have you ever planned a day that you left open to do anything but grading papers and writing lesson plans? Do you ever find yourself doing just that on your free days? On your days off, you always find something else to do that has to do with your class. Thinking of lessons, planning crafts, or thinking of new decorations for your classroom are all things teachers tend to find themselves doing on their days off. We tend to think about our classrooms before thinking about yourself or the people around us. We rather buy stuff for our students than stuff for you. You are always trying to think of new interesting ways to teach your students and keep them interested.
5. You can go all day without going to the bathroom because you have no one to cover for you.
Have you ever gone all day without going to the bathroom and not noticing it until the end of the day? On your prep and lunch, you tend to find yourself doing so many things, that the bathroom is never on the top of your list. That short period of time is when you need to do everything you need to before the students come back into the room. It is also when the other teachers use the bathroom, so it’s never open. Sometimes it’s just easier to wait until the end of the day or when you get home.
6. You can eat your lunch in ten minutes; this way you have more time to prepare.
You tend to find yourself making copies, planning lessons, responding to emails, or sometimes attending a meeting. Lunch tends to be the least important thing to do on your lunch break.
7. You tend to spend your Friday nights in bed, asleep by 8 p.m. The entire weekend happens in about thirty minutes.
After a long week of work, nothing is more important than being in bed by 8 p.m. on a Friday night. Your friends that aren’t teachers do not understand the feeling of wanting to be in bed instead of out at the bar on a Friday night. You tend to be too exhausted after the week to actually want to go out. Saturday goes by in about twenty minutes, and Sunday goes even faster. By the time Sunday night comes around, you are picking out your outfit for Monday morning, and regretting that you spent the whole weekend thinking about your class. But let’s be honest, we would not have wanted to spend the weekend any other way.
