“There’s no time to be bored in a world as beautiful as this.”  ―  Unknown

Here it is!  Summer is upon us! Especially here in Florida. Someone sent me the below image yesterday and I cracked up.

This is the last week of school in my district, though I know some states go until mid-June.  This will be the final teacher-blog post until fall.  I was notified by two readers (my mom and husband haha) that my last post was their least favorite and well, rather boring.  

Coming off of being sick and behind in all the home things, I was pleased to get a post made at all!  But now today, since it’s the last post for summer I’ll try to amend the travesty of my prior, boring post.

In my years teaching I worked for five principals and of those five, one principal stands way above and beyond as the best ever.  He trusted you to do your job, he was always pleasant and when he walked into your classroom you didn’t feel your stomach clench because he was going to nitpick your desk arrangement.  Unfortunately, he retired many years ago, (he has grand adventures that I see online and I am so happy for him) and his successor was rather the opposite of him. 

I would go out of my way to avoid her.  Gladly out-of-my-way-and-walk-around-the-entire-outside-of-the-school-to-avoid-her-in-the-hallway kind of out of the way.  It was really quite unfortunate because she did have qualities that should have made her a great principal, but her angry need for control blew it all up.  Anyway, several years back…2018, I think…I put in to be an hour late because I had to drop my practically perfect in every way Brannagh off at the vet.  No big deal.  Except she threw up in my car halfway to the vet.  Ew.  So, I dropped her off at the vet and scurried to my dad’s house (he is a mile from the vet) and really quickly cleaned my car.  I did not want to leave her belly bile in my car all day in the Florida sun, no thank you!  

Naturally, this put my arrival to school back by 30-60 minutes, I can’t quite remember now.  

What I can remember very well was that as I was walking in, here comes Ms. Trunchbull (literally, we called her that because she was mean as all get out, like the woman in Matilda—thank you Roald Dahl!).  My stomach did not clench, but my face sure did scrunch because I had my backpack on and I knew that would alert to the fact that I just arrived,  Then she’d know I was past the time I put in for and she would be nasty about it (she really did go through everyone’s timesheet, sometimes line by line…we’d all get nasty-gram emails about who did their sheet correctly and who didn’t!).  

I dashed into the nearest building, very Bastian Neverending Story style.  I had a key to a study room that was right there, so I let myself in and waited, in the dark, by the mostly shuttered window, for her to pass by.  Except after a minute she didn’t.  Which let me know she entered the building at the middle entrance and now I had lost her location.  I literally pranced around the room trying to decide how to best make my escape when another key entered a lock and the door started to open.  I about died. 

But, it was my ESE office roomie.  She flicked on the light and looked at me funny and asked what I was doing.  I said I was hiding and I didn’t know where our principal had gone.  She’s in the Pod’s room, my friend said.  The classroom next to my current hideout.  Perfect!  Away I dashed to continue a then normal day.  

It was so silly.  But goodness the woman was always so rude.  The kind of rude where you have to go out of your way to be rude. The only time she was not rude was just before the Gallup survey would come out.  She had years of miserable Gallup surveys.  And you would think that would be a reflection point, but unfortunately it never was.  And that was unfortunate not just for the staff, but for her as well.  The leadership potential was there, the executive skill set was there, the personality to lead…nope.  

She actually retires this year and though I’m sure several people will attend the retirement party, I only know one person going—and not because she wants to.  So sad!  Terrible legacy to leave.

So, there is my absurd and silly and somewhat embarrassing story of hiding from a principal.  (A coworker and I also hid behind a tree once from an AP, hahaha).

Now to tie it back around!  We, as the teachers, certainly don’t want our students hiding from us or our lessons!  There are plenty of easy ways to engage, gain respect and be pleasant to students—all at the same time!  (Total opposite of my old principal.)

Check these out if you need some resources! “Cask” is one of my favorite short stories, up there with “A Rose for Emily!” The amontillado!!

Happy Summering!  Enjoy adventures in a beautiful world!  Woooooo!

M.D. Saints
Reading the Rapids
Liberty Dog Writing Co.

I also received negative feedback that there was just one photo of the dogs last post (husband again X)

Everyone is ready to get out to the beautiful world! Beautiful world with plenty of hydration. Novah likes to shove herself into spaces that don’t quite fit her, but I was still surprised she squished herself into the Boppy pillow! Though she didn’t look nearly as comfortable as Nike when Nike took that spot a while back.