A Day of a Grade School Teacher

Some parents, like Mrs. Always Worried Mother, appear to be plain stuck up and aloof. They sometimes put themselves up on a pedestal upon which the teachers cannot reach. In truth, I was apprehensive about meeting her. What if she goes ballistic over her son’s girlfriend? Is there really a girlfriend? What if there is? Yes, I was a bit scared.

But in my private thoughts, I see the parents as equal. They just start to be cuss and indifferent when they begin to feel the teachers lack the effort to make them understand. Otherwise, they are as human as the teachers. Just like how you get impatient when a sales girl in Gaisano does not readily respond to your needs. As for Mrs. Worried Mother, she just wanted a place in the sun where she can understand her growing son better. I darn hoped I was right.

Somehow, I found the courage to really sit down with this mother hen and find out about the joy she makes in prying her nose into just everything. I mean, what can I do? She’s already there, arms folded across her chest, brows up in the stratosphere, looking ready to make a kebab out of me.

Our stiff and up tight parent-teacher conference that afternoon started with how she began suspecting her son of 11 and 4 months got himself a girlfriend and ended with, to much of my surprise, the best chicken recipe; how many minutes tahong should be baked with garlic and cheese; how fresh tomatoes can be grown in the lawn (she grows her own tomatoes with her P500.00 worth of French tipped finger nails); how husbands (and we) snore at night; is it really Pillsburry or Magnolia has the best pancake package; how we love the microwave popcorn; the best fabric conditioner ever; best Math websites for children; the friendly games at y8.com; how to wash your clothes in a washing machine without making the neckline of your shirt look like it suffered an atomic bomb attack.

It downhilled to a friendly chat about life in general; unnoticed events that comprise outside the austere parcel that is the academe. Mrs. Always Worried Mother, is for all that she is, a good mother in all honesty. The good news was, the son did not have a girlfriend. The girl whom he was texting was his group leader of whom he needed to constantly communicate with, or so her boy explained. Mrs. Always Worried Mother was satisfied and left me a recipe for a great Greek pasta.

I was mini-late for the Learning Area Meeting and decided to move the meeting with the Director to an hour later. My Official Saput Level plummeted to -1. The two meetings were stressful but didn’t affect my composure one bit.

As for my date, my husband waited for about an hour and a half at the Grade School campus gates. He got impatient and a little cranky for having to wait, but he can’t help it, he married a Teacher. Clasped in his hands was the dainty, new edition of the classic, “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The dinner went well. We ate and chatted and joked and talked about the tiny and unnoticed details of life and living in general. The waiter nudged a quiet notice to my husband that they were closing.

My day ended with the same quiescence it has started with; delivered a full circle of events meant to unfold for that day and it was enough. I was ready again to soldier on for another day safe in the knowledge of having a happy and rewarding chaos a teacher’s life is forever bestowed and blessed with.