I used to teach high school, and one of the best books that let me laugh about the whole experience was a funny, self-published book from a teacher in California called "Guerilla Warfare for Teachers." Teaching isn't like anything else, especially not the vision you might have of what it should be, whether you're good at it or not, in a good school or not. It's a life filled with drama; lives developing in front of your eyes; teenage emotions and yours conflicting; colleagues struggling to relate and make it through the day; administrators balancing their careers with yours; distant or over-protective parents calling; bills demanding pay from a meager checkbook; and the list goes on.

What people don't realize is that it's a 24-hour-a-day job. The kids never leave your mind, and everything reminds you of them or something you should do for them. When days are good, it's great; when they're not, it's awful. Everyone copes in a different way, but mostly it helps to talk about it. Some people do it more publicly than others. I wrote the paper several times during my tenure to complain about or explain an issue with the school board. Shortly after, I was censured by the principal, who had actually read my pieces previously published before I was a teacher.

What you learn is that most people, and most other teachers in fact, aren't willing to understand the stress and seriousness involved in the job and instead become the "happiness police." The other teachers pretend to agree but secretly show their lack of support in your struggles; they wear their silence like a badge, as though they are more of a survivor, can cope better than you. The outside world simply doesn't understand; everyone views their former teachers in an extreme, idealized light, whether positive or negative. It's always hard to imagine teachers have real lives outside the classroom, or are even human inside the classroom. Humor is a great weapon, but as we all know, within humor is truth, and the truth hurts. Enough of cliches for now.


This article is about another man's attempt to lighten the mood and speak realistically about the world of teaching. In his book, My Favorite Year, he relates stories gleaned from his years of teaching like how parents complained that he was too tall to teach kids, causing a child to have a brain tumor by using a timer in class, and unpatriotic for forgetting to lead the pledge one day. Funny stuff for some, but for others, not so much. Shortly after publication, he was hand-delivered a letter of "non-renewal" (school board speak for firing) and then finally allowed to stay if he didn't talk about his experiences anymore. Sounds familiar.

And so, in the spirit of solidarity, I've compiled a short list of Teaching Don'ts that I learned from my own career. Interestingly, teaching is one of the few careers and ways of life without its own comic... maybe I should start one... "The Rotten Apple"?

Don't...

• Talk about money. It's not about the money. It's about inspiring the next generation of CEO's whose floors will be cleaned by people who make more than you.
  
• Talk about parents. You are a people person, arent you?
  
• Talk about kids. Problems with kids only speak of your inability to inspire them.
  
• Doubt tabula rasa. Children are new to the world and aren't capable of wrong unless you taught them.
  
• Talk outside of the teacher's lounge. Especially not in public. Especially not in print.
  
• Stop laughing.