Monk on The Road

Top-five Things I Love About Being a Teacher that Have Nothing To Do with Instructing:

1. The process of getting coffee on campus: having to wash my mug in the bathroom, going to get the coffee in a colleague’s room, then having to go get milk from the workroom fridge becomes less about obtaining the beverage and more about all of the detours on the way.
2. Summers off.
3. The excuse to buy school supplies every year, only being able to get more sophisticated ones like fountain pens, ink bottles and paperclips. Don’t think I don’t still grab that 24-cent box of crayons and a bottle of Elmer’s glue, though.
4. Dressing up on Wednesdays–I’m a sucker for ceremony, and here we have pomp and circumstance and ceremony weekly.
5. Birthday celebrations. I always felt bad in school for kids who did not get to celebrate their birthday with the class because it fell over a school holiday. Mine is right at the time of the term when we need a celebration, and I get to celebrate birthday week in 5 classes!

Top-five Historical Figures with whom I’d Really Like to Have a Drink: (in no order, and subject to change)

1. Benjamin Franklin
2. James Madison
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4. William Wilberforce
5. William Gladstone