'teach not thy lip such scorn'

i spent this afternoon and evening with a colleague, harriet, at a workshop sponsored by prentice hall. it was not so much a workshop in so much as company reps filling our complimentary totebags with samples of their books, plying us with dinner and wine, and making us feel really really good about being teachers. i can't say that i minded any of it, though i tried to avoid the pick-me-pick-me-we're-better-than-the-others aspects of the textbook adoption presentation.

it was really nice to sit down with professionals who value the job that we do as educators. one of the hardest things for me to stomach is people who assume teaching is a cake job ("just sitting in a room with a bunch of kids") or that the perks of a job in education are above and beyond what is deserved ("summers off? snow days? that must be nice.") it was gratifying to receive genuine pats on the back from people who actually know what it's like to be at the front of the classroom. granted it was in their best interest to have us like them and thus their company so they can make a bazillion dollars from us when our school buys new textbooks, but the conversations i had, particularly after dinner, were really affirming. it made me realize that maybe teaching isn't quite out of my system yet, and that teaching in nyc next year is a very good decision, as opposed to jumping into a new career path in publishing. not to mention the fact that publishing in education might be a really good place for me to start eventually bridging the job-to-job gap. hmm.