Gate vs. Thread

I'm among the 75% or so of teachers who has been threatened with a lawsuit. When it happens, it's devastating. Usually the threat is empty, or it's baseless. And I've found that people often argue the most intensely when they know their position is indefensible. Yet it happens a lot in this profession.

Teachers spend large amounts of time in front of students with no immediate supervision. In those times with students, it's easy to say something that will offend. When tired, it's easy to forget exercising good judgment when sharing details or perspectives with students. And sometimes youth becomes so shrill and obnoxious a teacher can be tempted to lose his or her temper. There are so many opportunities to make a mistake.

Then one thinks about the quirky matters that can trip up a whole career: leaving a sharp tool out where someone can use it, not properly accounting for the costs of a student or school activity, abusing copyright protections when copying materials for class, leaving a classroom to pick up a set of photocopies only to have something bad happen in one's absence.

But if I get to the interaction with students, students thrill to watch teachers flirt with "the edge" and it's tough to remember to be the professional. Students giggle when you say a bad word, or engage in double meaning. Students often want to talk about controversial issues that appear in the news. And though a teacher should never engage in bad-mouthing peers, students will seem to enjoy it when a teacher engages in it.

So I guess it's fair to say that we often hang by thread as teachers. We show up for work knowing that we have approximately 5 or 6 hours of time in front of a live audience where anything said or done can appear at the dinner table or become the subject of conversation at soccer practice.

However, when this job is done right, it resembles a downhill skier just barely missing the gates as he navigates his way down a slalom course. I remember being at a church where a preacher was able to do just that, and I would marvel at how close he would seem to come to words that broke the fifth wall of spiritual message, but then would turn back to the gospel right in time. It was something I marveled at. When we do our jobs well, kids can marvel at that as well.