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Fake News vs. A Truth as Old as Time….
Wait a minute….that’s the theme song from Beauty and the Beast…..
I am a high school teacher. Frankly, it is an all consuming job, mentally, physically, emotionally. I’ve had to be tough, fair, and entertaining. I know I have fallen short many days, but I think I held my own most days. I know I did better than the complaining, judgy, know-it-all trolls on social media platforms would have done. I cringe when I hear people decide how other people who are doing things they have never done, would do it better.
So do it! I mean, try to do it…..Again, you might do a bang up job for a week, but then you start to wear thin….adult sized drama fiends, with underdeveloped brains who are also energy vampires (read teenagers) will eat you for lunch. Don’t get me wrong….they are lovely creatures. I love them and have such compassion for them….but let’s be honest; they are lacking experience. Experience is key to the understanding of a great many things.
Just think of the fact that I am in contact with and personally interacting with over 100 teenagers and 10 or more adults on a daily basis. What job anywhere requires that level of synergy? Yes, there are jobs where people interact with many strangers for a few minutes at most. But consider interacting with this many people who you know pretty well (like the back of your hand well) daily for months on end. It……Is…..Emotionally…..Draining……………Rewarding, yes! But…….draining. Many times I would get home from work and just want to hide in my room just to get a rest from interaction with anyone….to think…to hear my own thoughts. So, the children of teachers, their spouses, sometimes don’t get the time and the best of us….because we’ve already been drained of our daily allotment of “give a f*%@s” for the day, the week, the month. Unless you’ve done it, you just don’t know.
Anyway, I got way off the rails there….pretty common for me. You can ask my students…they love to get me off track so they can hear stories and avoid work. I sometimes acquiesce just because storytelling is my favorite thing…
I am sharing the following metaphor that I have also shared with my students numerous times minus the bible references. My goal is to illustrate a point….one I think we all need to consider in this current age.
