On The Outside

I got out of teaching for a few hours today. All I had to do was, in the words of a comrade of mine, "cross over to the dark side." What this entailed was essentially joining a group of administrative types as they observed the morning goings-on in several of our classrooms. I could feel the tug of the eight thirty bell as I sat across the room from the breakfast that was provided. Tempted though I was, I don't know if my digestive system would allow me to eat at six forty-five and at half past eight. I sat in front of my carefully collated folder and looked over the rooms that we would be visiting.
Then, suddenly, we were on the move. They wanted to see how our kids came into the room, and how prepared our teachers were when they got there. As we arrived at the bottom of the stairs, we followed a fifth grade teacher into his room and watched his class start the day. I watched the others scribble notes as they moved silently among the students, pausing to check an answer or to ask a quick question. I shifted nervously in my seat and tried to focus my attention on the question that we had been sent to investigate. It was an orderly group, and there seemed to be learning going on, so inwardly I cheered.
Our next stop was the classroom of my fourth grade partner. She had her group humming along, and the watchful eyes nodded their approval and noted all the clever ways that students had to participate. I breathed a sigh of relief and wondered how I would have fared under the same scrutiny.
By the time we went upstairs to our third and final room to visit, I was feeling proud and happy with the job that my fellow teachers were doing. Sure, there were plenty of ways that things could have been improved, or tweaked, or managed differently, but here in the week before Christmas, kids were in their seats learning. Teachers hadn't given up and put Rudolph on the VCR while they cut out snowflakes. Education proceeded apace.
Then, just as quick as it had began, the time had come for me to bid farewell to the world of three letter acronyms - TLAs - and to return to my own group of eager faces. Don't get me wrong, I'm still desperate to have those two weeks off, but I felt better about finishing out the calendar year after seeing our school from outside the fishbowl. It felt good to get back to work.