Similarities and Differences

Out Of My League

Tuesday, August 1

I woke up this morning and realized that it's August, and then went back to sleep because I realized I wouldn't have too many more of these days. I don't know how people can have jobs without a two and a half month break. I mean, granted, being a teacher involves putting in a lot of unpaid overtime, so we deserve our summers.

My aunt, Jen, offered my a job up here in Iowa. She's the middle school principal at the school I'll be working at. When she offered me the job, I didn't really feel like I had the choice to say no because I'm raising my nine-year-old niece, Ava, and the schools suck down in Alabama, where we're from. I wanted to give her a better life, and that's why we picked up everything we owned and moved up here.

And the schools up here are above satisfactory. Granted, that's not saying much compared to Alabama.

Jen asked me to come over to the school to check out my classroom. Ava was hanging out with a friend today, so it worked out.

I've driven by the school before, but when I walked in the building, I immediately realized how privileged this town is. Or how high their taxes are. I live in a town nearby. This is a beautiful middle school. Jen greeted me in the office. They had one of those secure offices near the front, which is what our school in Alabama needed, but couldn't afford.

"Hey," I said to Jen, looking around the office. This school was just bright and it smelled like sunshine. I'm not even kidding. It was just happy.

"Steven," she said, leading me through the office to the hallway, which led to the cafeteria, "this is your school now. Let me give you a tour."

"Ummm, okay."

She showed me the cafeteria and the gyms. They were just so big and the windows just made everything so bright. Everything at my old school was so dark. I can't believe I get to teach here.

Then she showed me the different classrooms for construction, band, choir, art, and then she showed me several rooms with a bunch of computers on the top level.

When we got to my classroom, Jen unlocked the door, and then she held the door open. I walked in my room, and the almost empty room brought reality upon me as I saw my own laptop sitting at the blank desk. I stared at the desks that had been pushed to one side. Everything smelled so new. That's what that smell was.

There was a strange thing on the whiteboard, so I asked Jen what it was.

"This board is actually a smart board. You can hook it up to your computer, and use it almost like a touch screen. You could use it to highlight text or something with the pen or you can use it as a mouse. The nice thing is that you can also use dry erase markers on it, too."

I raised my eyebrows. We just just installed chalkboards in our classrooms at our old school last year. I didn't want to tell her that though.

"Also, the kids have Chromebooks. We wanted to get iPads or Macs, but they were too expensive due to the rate of changing technology."

I folded my arms, nodding, pretending this was a totally normal conversation we would have had in Alabama. Ha, nope.

"Why do the kids need Chromebooks though? What's wrong with paper?" If she wasn't my aunt, I wouldn't have asked this, but I still shouldn't have asked it because it was critical.

She looked almost offended. "Less paper is better because paper is harder to lose online."

I almost laughed. That's not true. I mean, yeah, kids lose papers all the time, but sometimes the internet breaks.

"So what happens if the Wi-Fi goes down and a teacher has their whole lesson planned online?"

"Then they're screwed or they better have a back up plan."

I think I know what I won't being doing any of this year. These kids need to learn how to not rely on the internet.

"Oh, great."

Jen gave me a tight smile. "What do think so far?"

Honestly, I'm confident that this school is way out of my league. I'm used to the opposite of this.

"It's a nice school. You've done a great job with it."

"Oh, well, thank you. We're thinking about adding onto the building, too."

"Really?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yup."

I'm just not used to the idea of being in a school that has everything when I'm coming from a very rustic, or humble, school.