A few days ago, I had a meeting at school. Nothing major, just a quick meeting as a reference for a friend. At the end of the meeting I was walking the gentleman I met with back to the office, which involves going out of my mobile mansion, down a ramp and into the school building. Total outside time is something like 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds, I noticed two things. First, there were a lot of screaming children in the playground. Not out of the ordinary. Second, and much more incongruous, there was a dog running around. Just an average sized beagle, not some hulking mastiff or anything like that, just a moderate sized dog. Curious - dogs are not generally on school grounds until after school when a neighbor woman likes to bring her dogs to run around and leave little "presents" for the kids to step in. I went in to the building, informed the custodial staff that there was a dog outside, then did the same with the office.
As it turns out, my principal is deathly afraid of dogs, and was not about to go confront her fear. The secretaries decided the best course of action was animal control, a decision that took about 2 minutes longer to reach than it probably should have. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that in the brief look I got at the dog, it did not appear to be sick or injured, just lost. Perhaps I could coax it over and get a look at its tags. So outside I went.
After a couple minutes of walking around the playground in pursuit of this poor dog, the kids finally are ushered inside and I was left out there alone in relative peace with the dog. He finally dared to come close enough for a few sniffs, I checked his collar and found no tags. Go figure, who would want their dog to be returned to them? Unfortunately, he got away from me before I could get a good grip on his collar, so I was unable to hang on to him for animal control. He trotted off across the road and disappeared between some houses. Animal control finally got there something like an hour later, I talked to the animal warden (apparently that's their preferred title? News to me.) briefly and received an admonishment to not get bitten among other things.
Now, I am a pet sitter on the side. I have worked on a farm, I have had several dogs and cats as pets, and I like to think that I have a decent helping of common sense. If anything had appeared out of the ordinary about the dog I would have stayed away. But it was very friendly, not the least bit aggressive, and clearly not rabid or anything like that. I like to think that I used my professional pet sitter skills to know if the dog was okay.
As it turns out, my principal is deathly afraid of dogs, and was not about to go confront her fear. The secretaries decided the best course of action was animal control, a decision that took about 2 minutes longer to reach than it probably should have. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that in the brief look I got at the dog, it did not appear to be sick or injured, just lost. Perhaps I could coax it over and get a look at its tags. So outside I went.
After a couple minutes of walking around the playground in pursuit of this poor dog, the kids finally are ushered inside and I was left out there alone in relative peace with the dog. He finally dared to come close enough for a few sniffs, I checked his collar and found no tags. Go figure, who would want their dog to be returned to them? Unfortunately, he got away from me before I could get a good grip on his collar, so I was unable to hang on to him for animal control. He trotted off across the road and disappeared between some houses. Animal control finally got there something like an hour later, I talked to the animal warden (apparently that's their preferred title? News to me.) briefly and received an admonishment to not get bitten among other things.
Now, I am a pet sitter on the side. I have worked on a farm, I have had several dogs and cats as pets, and I like to think that I have a decent helping of common sense. If anything had appeared out of the ordinary about the dog I would have stayed away. But it was very friendly, not the least bit aggressive, and clearly not rabid or anything like that. I like to think that I used my professional pet sitter skills to know if the dog was okay.
The point of this rambling diatribe (that has taken way too long to write) is that there are lots of things you find yourself doing as a teacher that nobody ever mentioned in college. For instance - we learned about dealing with hostile parents, administrators, colleagues; we learned many educational and developmental philosophies and theories; we learned about instruments and music and dealing with bathroom breaks in Kindergarten (hint - don't say anything that sounds like bathroom. It's like yawning. It's contagious.); we even learned about how important it is to have the custodial and secretarial folks on your side.
Nowhere did I have the opportunity to sign up for "Dogcatching 101."
Granted, I love dogs. I love animals in general. I actually really enjoyed dealing with this dog. I have even had to capture him now 5 separate times since this article was first undertaken (his name is Buddy and he loves to play with the kids at recess).
What I am really getting at is that these are the moments that I think can really make or break the job of teaching. Job descriptions call this "Other Duties As Assigned." The intentional vagueness can leave open an absurdly broad realm of possibilities. Sometimes they're as fun as romping with Buddy the dog. Other times it means moving furniture, dealing with paperwork, unexpected meetings, conferences, etc. Some days are nothing but Other Duties As Assigned. Some days you see neither hide nor hair of anything out of the ordinary (let's face it, those days don't happen very often).
As much as I don't enjoy having to stop what I'm doing or spend what little unscheduled time I have to chase a dog that is surrounded by a screaming group of children, I can't imagine a job where I knew what every moment was going to hold before it happened. One of the greatest things about teaching is that each day is new. Even when you have all of your lessons planned down to a tee, little things will happen that are completely unexpected. Some good, some bad, but none of them can really be anticipated (beyond the simple fact of their existence).
I don't know about you, but I'll take Buddy the dog over a cubicle and TPS reports any day.
Nowhere did I have the opportunity to sign up for "Dogcatching 101."
Granted, I love dogs. I love animals in general. I actually really enjoyed dealing with this dog. I have even had to capture him now 5 separate times since this article was first undertaken (his name is Buddy and he loves to play with the kids at recess).
What I am really getting at is that these are the moments that I think can really make or break the job of teaching. Job descriptions call this "Other Duties As Assigned." The intentional vagueness can leave open an absurdly broad realm of possibilities. Sometimes they're as fun as romping with Buddy the dog. Other times it means moving furniture, dealing with paperwork, unexpected meetings, conferences, etc. Some days are nothing but Other Duties As Assigned. Some days you see neither hide nor hair of anything out of the ordinary (let's face it, those days don't happen very often).
As much as I don't enjoy having to stop what I'm doing or spend what little unscheduled time I have to chase a dog that is surrounded by a screaming group of children, I can't imagine a job where I knew what every moment was going to hold before it happened. One of the greatest things about teaching is that each day is new. Even when you have all of your lessons planned down to a tee, little things will happen that are completely unexpected. Some good, some bad, but none of them can really be anticipated (beyond the simple fact of their existence).
I don't know about you, but I'll take Buddy the dog over a cubicle and TPS reports any day.
No comments:
Post a Comment