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My First Day of Grade One
Homeschool freak turned primary school teacher, and how it changed my life
Yesterday morning I was trying to choose the perfect outfit to wear from a morning bicycle ride to a fancy sushi lunch date. The modern woman really can spare no expense when it comes to flexible wardrobe pieces. To accommodate my needs of comfort and elegance, I reached for a pair of wide-legged trousers that have been banished to the back of my closet since last year.
Upon buttoning them up, I reached into my pockets and was confronted with two relics of a time that suddenly feels very distant: in one pocket, a Pokemon card, in the other, a stubby piece of chalk.
These had been among my “teacher pants,” living for three years in the monochromatic stack of professional clothes I would pull from every exhausted morning in lieu of using my brain. I suppose the last I’d worn them was in my final days of teaching last May. (Here is where I kindly ask you to overlook the implication that I don’t wash my clothes as regularly as I should.)
Over the last few months, I’ve thought quite a few times about writing on my teaching experience. I think the thing stopping me from speaking (or writing) about it formally is that I’m worried it’ll be a punch in the gut. That in letting myself think about teaching, I’ll…
