I have an ornery streak. Actually, I have many, but this one is self-protective. Whenever I am overloaded, I write. I may not have time, and it may not be good writing, but it works like a safety valve, allowing me to decompress. I’m there now.
The reason for the pressure build-up is common enough –work. Because, at 72, I’ve gone back to it. It wasn’t my idea either. When the headmaster of a school asked me to apply for the grammar science teacher position, I just stared at him. “Do you know how OLD I am?” I asked. Apparently, he did, and I was hired, part-time, to be the only septuagenarian teacher there.
Naturally, there were obstacles. When I interviewed, I made it plain that I had neither intention, nor ability, to do “crisscross-applesauce,” physical prowess no longer being one of my superpowers. I can still get off the floor, but it isn’t simple, and it isn’t a pretty sight.
Worse than the physical expectations, were the techie ones. No one has physical gradebooks anymore; instead they use complicated computer programs which calculate grades, post assignments, and play the school fight song. I will just say this about that: when I was in college, only math and computer majors were allowed access to the giant, room-sized computers. Incredibly, I never took a computer course, and as years passed, I thought I’d done well to abandon my typewriter and use search engines. Turns out, there’s a lot more to learn, and the immaterial gradebook is more complicated that the physical one.
As new and as hard as this job is, there are compensations. Last week, a particularly sweet little fourth grader brought me something carefully folded in white tissue paper. “This is for you,” she said. “Why, how nice of you,” I replied, “thank you!” She stared at me, cheeks glowing, eyes bright, while I unwrapped it. Inside the many layers of protective paper, I found a caterpillar. Very big. Very black.Very dead. “I thought we could look at it under the microscope,” she whispered. So, we did. Since then, we’ve looked at moths (“Oh look! I can see its proboscis!”), wasps (“Yikes! See that stinger!”) and peacock feathers (“Oh, man! Look at those colors!”). We’ve dissected grasshoppers, mapped taste buds, identified minerals, made fossils. We’ve sung “The Atom’s Family” to the tune of “The Adams Family,” and enthused over elements to Offenbach’s “Orpheus”. We investigate God’s world and give Him glory. This is the good part. It makes struggling with the hard stuff worth it.
Now I consider this, I don’t feel so overloaded after all.
