Teacher Appreciation

David's students love him a lot. I mean really a lot. This sometimes surprises me because he is strict in the classroom, his material is pretty difficult, and his humor is VERY dry. He cares about the kids a lot, though, and I think that they can sense when someone is genuine. He takes the time to talk to them and find out what's going on in their lives and they appreciate it.

Their appreciation manifests itself in different ways...

1. When we are out in public, say at Wal-Mart, children will chase us down. Chase. Us. Down. They will scream and yell and then stalk us like animals . We've had kids just follow us around during a whole shopping trip. The funniest thing about it, though, is that once they stop screaming and we stop to talk to them, they realize they have nothing to say and things get awkward..."Soooooo, how are you? What are doing here at Wal-Mart? Oh yeah? My mom buys that kind of dish soap. Well, see you tomorrow in class."

2. Some students know where we live (scary, I know) and they come by our house. Last year, while we were gone for the weekend around Easter, kids hid plastic Easter eggs full of candy in our front yard and left us Easter Baskets with a note saying that we should have an Easter Egg Hunt. So cute.

Other kids just sneak on our front porch and knock on the door and try to run back to their car before we see them. Am I liable for their injuries if they break a leg jumping off my porch? I need to look into that.

It doesn't really bother me unless I am watching 24 reruns and in a tense Jack Bauer moment someone bangs on my door and scares the bajeezes out of me. Are they liable if I have a heart attack due to a bad mix of crime drama television and practical jokes?

3. Last year for Homecoming Week at his school, David wore a football player's jersey as a joke. Now during the Football Season, there is a race to get to Mr. Dark's room on Friday mornings. 18 year old boys will squeal and push each other down while running to David's room in order to get him to wear THEIR football jersey. The kicker of the football team now gets to school at around 7 a.m. on Fridays and waits for David to get there, so he can be assured that David will wear his jersey and no one else's.

My man. Number 29.

At the last school pep rally, the students chanted and yelled for David to come to the gym floor and lead the student body in a spirit filled cheer! If you know David, you'll recognize the irony in him leading a spirit filled cheer. The Davester is not typically a cheer-er.

Two things to notice about this picture: 1. All the other people on the floor are football moms. 2. There is a half eaten apple on the floor between David's feet. I can assure you that after he finished leading his cheer, he picked that apple right up off the disgusting high school gym floor and finished eating it. That's the way he rolls.

David loves teaching. He loves the kids. The students love him. It is a good situation. But sometimes I can't help but feel like I am married to some kind of reality TV star.

I'm not made for the spotlight.

Melissa