And now for something completely different.

At what point do we stop being children and become teachers. I am well aware of the never-ending role of “student”, but there must be some point at which we cease being children.

Tonight, at dinner, a bunch of my TFA friends and I were sitting around and laughing about one immature thing or another. We were talking about ex-boyfriends and curfews and random drunken antics and it hit me – Ms. Lynch and Mrs. Corliss definitely did NOT go clubbing or master the fine art of beer pong. There is no way that Ms. Sachs still had a curfew when she started teaching. And if Ms. Johnson ever terrorized a dining hall completely drunk than I would eat my hat.

So why are we going to be teachers?

Yesterday we took a test. It was self-corrected and while we were correcting it I realized that the act of grading our own paper was sort of practice for all of the papers we would soon have to grade. Then I heard something horrific: after each answer was read the soft hiss of “yessssssssssssss” bubbled up throughout the room. Later, as some people got more bold, words like “yup” and “wahoo!” started coming out as well. Nothing bothers me more than people who publicly congratulate themselves on easy self-assessed tests. We get it: you’re smart. So is everyone else in the room or they wouldn’t be here. Some people would argue with the administrator of the test (“what if I said…?”) and others grew annoyed at the stupidity of the rubric and complained about their wrong answers (“I knew that! The question was just confusing!). People, this test was to see what we needed to review. Anything of any academic importance will not be self-assessed.

The teachers of tomorrow, the 3rd graders of today.