Introduction
I remember growing up wanting to be a teacher. Some kids played house. Others played astronaut. Me? I gave quizzes and graded them. The funny thing is that my friends wanted me to. I was pretty good at it. I would chose topics, "teach" a mini lesson, and give a quiz.
Ok. So I am weird.
After graduating high school at 16, I went to college for a year, then dropped out. I thought I would just work and get by. Given the bad home life I had, I needed to have a real home — my home. I went to work full time with a couple of jobs and gave up on my dream. Although it took me a while, I went back to school and graduated just before my 35th birthday. I had finally made it.
I had this notion that teachers had it easy. They didn't go in on weekends, they were off two weeks for Christmas, a week for Thanksgiving, a week for Spring Break, assundry other holidays, and three months in the summer.
Obviously, I had no clue.
Teachers work long hours. There are always papers to grade, meetings to attend, parents to have conferences, paperwork to complete...the list goes on and on. This is on top of the demands of creating and teaching lessons. Teachers usually take homework nights and weekends. During the summer, there are workshops and conferences to attend, since teachers are required to acquire professional learning credits to maintain their certificates.
There is so much that happens behind the scenes that the general public is not aware of. That is the intention of this book. There are humorous stories. There are surprising, yet true, facts. There are the "omg, I can't believe that really happened" situations. It's all true.
And this is the life Behind A Teacher's Desk.
