Poor Righteous Teachers

Last Friday, our night was booked up with the promising opportunity of a night out on the town with the teachers from the Infantil division (which Joel, Adam, and myself work in) of the school in which we are employed. Infantil consists of ages 2 to 6, a reasonably troublesome spectrum to oversee, so understandably the teachers felt a need to reunite outside of the work environment and shed their woes for at least one night.

The dinner began mildly enough, with the usual barriers of language and shyness partitioning us from the rest of the table. However once the bottles were brought to the table and all those around me began to douse themselves the levees were broken and we all became one jolly group. Glasses and bottles were spilled, people crawled under tables, at one point during the night the teachers from different classes were called upon to stand up and recite the songs and dances they had been teaching their pupils. Everyone else in the restaurant at the time probably hated us, but it was OK because we spent our days raising their children-well probably not their children, but you get the point.

In short, we brought the motherfucking ruckus.

By the time we left the restuarant, our destination a nearby bar, most of the group was pretty sauced up and had left behind any memories of their long day spent shouting at kids.

The bar experience began how it usually does for me when we go out with people, that is me doing my best to politely decline vehement offers for drinks from drunk people who are pretty sure I should be drunk too.

We climbed down from our makeshit thrones of pedagoguery and exchanged our deepest fears with eachother concerning our roles in these childrens lives. What if we were doing it all wrong? How were you supposed to teach them if you just end up yelling all the time? What sour injustice swiftly snapped them out of the necessary gleeful years of early childhood and firmly placed them into the faculty's factory at the age of two? It was as if we were getting them used to being told what to do as soon as possible, so that by the time they get to high school they couldn't even dream of a better time if they tried, following the rules would be their past, present, and future. Three year olds didn't need to be told to sit in their chairs, they needed to be able to run around.

That is the frightening thing about teachers, they are fallible humans beings like the rest of us. Yet it is up to them to be the leader of many, shaping and molding young minds from a cockpit that may not be aimed so steadily itself.

I obviously care about the children I work with immensely, but I couldn't help but be jealous at the evident passion of those around me who were so frustrated at the position they were in. These were people who were determined the educate, no matter how much bullshit administration or snotty kids got in their way. These kind of feelings are infections, and thoughts of genuinely dedicating myself to educating these kids rapidly flicker throughout my mind, and the line is blurred between this just being a job and this being what I really care about.

So as all these thoughts were tearing through my mind the night carried on we left the first bar in search of a place to dance. An uphill walk through chilly streets soon led us to a line outside of an unfamiliar place with an unfortunate 10 euro cover charge.

It was well worth it though, we descended into the club, a long corridor packed with people and made our way to the coat check. And there we stayed until five in the morning, the music far too loud to allow any depressing conversation, the laser lights coaxing us to be content with simpler things in life than lofty goals of saving the world.

However, the line between life and work refused to remain distinct, a techno mix of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" blared from the all encompassing speakers as we refrained in succulent irony, "Hey teacher, leave those kids alone".