Everyone is a teacher

Every teacher, I think, creates a Sunshine Folder where they put mementos that make them happy. Little notes or hand-drawn pictures from students telling them how much they are appreciated. Anything that might bring a smile to their face when times are tough in the classroom.

I certainly have one. I also have another special file I keep right behind my Sunshine Folder. It’s labeled “Fun Stuff” and contains silly test answers or funny quotes that make me giggle. Kids certainly say (or write) the funniest things sometimes, and there’s no way I can remember all their quips, so I jot them down and keep them handy for a good laugh.

I recently was cleaning out some files, and couldn’t resist laughing down memory lane. I came upon an essay written by a sophomore about three years ago. There, on the second page, was a highlighted sentence that read, “Macbeth lacked a certain level of calm and sense.” I giggled when I read it, just as I’m sure I did when I was grading it.

Macbeth lacked a certain level of calm and sense. That’s funny. Obviously, the child was meaning “common sense,” but what came out on paper is quite funny. Now that I think about it, though, it actually could work. If you know who Macbeth was in the Shakespearean play, he did lack a little something between the ears. He went a little berserk, a little looney, for sure.

Calm and sense. But aren’t we, too, becoming more and more reflective of my student’s take on Macbeth? We certainly aren’t murdering a king or dreaming of daggers, but we may have to admit...our world is quickly depleting its God-given dose of serenity and logic.

Just driving around the streets of Columbus will display a growing aggression that is symptomatic of a bigger problem - that lack of calm my student’s version of Macbeth had. Believe us teachers, the plague of missing peace is definitely not hidden in our classroom desks either. Never in our careers have we seen such tortured children, such malcontent and genuinely unhappy youngsters. It’s alarming and saddening. Somehow we must find a way to find our repose and share a dose with those around us, because our children are watching and mimicking.

And basic logical sense seems sometimes absent around us, when personal agendas, pride, and selfishness overtake sound judgment. For Macbeth, his lack of calm combined with his lack of sense made for an ugly ending to the play. And if our schools are microcosms of society, teachers most definitely feel the pangs of a slow whittling away of basic, common logics. Certainly there is a way for us to ban together and reignite the embers of our collective brain powers to coexist with some semblance of logic, where decisions and actions aren’t rash but are processed through the filters of what just makes logical sense.

School teachers have the patience of Job as they thrive in classrooms filed with mini versions of us. Kudos to them. But on this first day of school, may we be reminded that teachers aren’t just inside a classroom. They are in line at Publix, driving on Manchester Expressway, and sitting in a booth at Country’s. So, let us be mindful to portray calm and sense, because someone is always learning from us.

This story was originally published August 7, 2018 at 4:31 PM.