The True Color of the Grass

Spoiler alert: it isn’t always greener. 

Okay, that’s not a spoiler. We’ve all heard the old saying, and we’ve all heard the old saying reversed. 

But in the last few months, I’ve discovered the grass is kind of the same everywhere. It's mostly what you make of it, but there will be thirsty, yellow patches on everyone’s lawn, and inevitably someone’s dog has shit somewhere. You just have to try not to step in it. 

This is a lesson I learned in an interesting, roundabout way this year. Most of my hesitant steps through the grass have led me to think of people constantly saying to me, “Everything happens for a reason,” when I struggled to get pregnant. I hated that saying then, and I hate that saying now. I’m not sure I needed to go through the annoying minutiae of what I’ve been through in order to grasp this lesson about keeping my own lawn well manicured. Maybe when I’m not in the thick of things, I’ll have a better perspective and I’ll disagree with myself, but for now, I wish I hadn’t made this strange landscaping decision.

I’m big on the extended metaphors lately. 

To put it plainly- I've left my teaching job in Princeton and gone right back to the middle school I used to work in. 

I know! I hear gasping from the crowd! But Shauna!, I hear you saying. You wrote a whole post about how proud you were to work in a town that values education so! How much you’ve loved that town since you were a young girl! And now you’re telling me that their lawns are covered in dog feces?

Well, yeah. I’m kind of telling you that. 

Also kind of not. Things aren’t really the fault of Princeton. They’re the fault of systems and situations and priorities I couldn’t see being affected when I accepted a job at PMS. 

The number one driving factor in my new decision? 

This. Right here. 

The amount of time with my family that the job cost me was completely unplanned. 

Oh sure, I knew the commute to Princeton was more like 30 minutes (though in reality it was  more like 40) as opposed to the 15 of my old job. But a slightly longer commute for increased sanity seemed like a small price to pay. The Princeton school day also starts a lot later, so I didn’t have to wake up earlier. Bonus. 

But starting later meant finishing later, at 3:10 as opposed to 2:20. Almost a full hour. My last block of Princeton class started at 2:17. I would look at the clock when my last group of students was coming in and think, My day would be ending in my old school. And I had a whole other hour of teaching to go. 

I had the same position in my old job for almost 10 years. I taught 8th grade support social studies and resource language arts. I haven’t had to create new lessons or materials in years unless I felt inspired to change it up. I was relieved to be assigned to teaching 8th grade in Princeton because I could use the same materials. Wahoo. 

Except… my schedule was more different than anticipated. I was able to use some materials, but I also had to modify different pieces of curriculum I’d never used before. That wasn’t too bad; a new coworker I befriended shared materials, and I used them as jumping off points. 

But I also had 3 sections of a class that had no curriculum. It was half my day. And while that sounds interesting in theory because I could cover whatever I saw a need for, it could also be a real challenge to evaluate student needs, figure out how to teach them, and then create and/or find the necessary materials. It proved extremely time consuming, even given how many different things I’ve taught over my 10 years. 

Another piece of the time consuming puzzle was the fact that instead of seeing all my classes in the same order every day, Princeton operates on a rotating A-E day schedule. This means that our schedule changed every day, repeating once you get to the sixth. It also means that you drop two classes every day, meaning you teach every group only 4 out of 5 days. 

All of this has a lot of consequences:

1. Continuity is hard to maintain. I randomly wouldn’t see a class on a Wednesday. Or Friday. Or Monday. It gives everything a stopping-and-starting vibe all the time. 

2. Even the sections that I did teach couldn’t stay on the same page. I had to make notes at the end of every class period about where we were leaving off and spend some time at the beginning of every period figuring it out. Instead of teaching the same one or two things every day, I was teaching 4-5 different things. It was extremely confusing and took up a surprising amount of brain power. 

3. Preparing materials also took longer as I had to make sure that I was getting it right for each of those different daily schedules. If I was using physical paper copies, I would have to dedicate time to organizing them by class. 

4. I literally never knew what group of students was walking in at any given time. I always had to check my schedule. Which of course meant the kids almost never know where they’re going and are often late or spend chunks of class time looking at where they’re going next. Or they use that as an excuse to be late, and I had no way of knowing how truthful they are. 

When I started working in my old district, I stayed until 6pm sometimes planning and prepping. The days were long, and I actively looked to move districts then. But they had me placed in an elementary school setting, and as soon as they moved me to middle school six months later, things were very different. Sure, curricula changed multiple times while I was there, but I have a good handle on how to teach middle schoolers, and I have a lot more prep time, so before long I was leaving by 3 or 3:30. In fact, some days I stayed later to socialize rather than work. Or do both at the same time, having what my dubbed work-sister and I called work parties. 

During my first week in Princeton, I stayed until 5:30 everyday and got home after 6. Just in time for dinner. After which I had maybe an hour to spend with my daughter before she went to bed. I missed getting her at 3:30 and taking her to the park for two hours before heading home, having dinner, and still having time to play before bed. 

I went to bed every night that first week crying. 

I imposed a cut off on myself of 4:30, which still had me getting home after 5 every day, losing an hour and a half I used to have with my family. 

And while I thought removing some of the weirder problems of my old job would increase my mental sanity, I proved myself wrong. Because nothing is as wonderful as family time. 

So as early as October, I started talking with some Old Job people about the prospect of coming back. A friend I worked with was retiring in December, so there would be an easy opening. The person I started talking to told me within a few hours that the general vibe for my returning was good. 

Still unsure of what to do, I applied. Around Thanksgiving, I was offered the job. No interview, no demo lesson, just the offer. Right back to my same pay step. No time at all back toward tenure, but what can you do. 

I accepted, was board approved on my birthday in December, and resigned from Princeton the next day. I had to give 60 days of notice, so I couldn’t leave until early February. 

There were times I worried if I’d made the right decision. I loved my students in Princeton and had a very hard time telling them I was going. None of them were jumping for joy, but they were very mature and understood it was best for my family. 

And so now it’s mid-March, and I’ve been back for about a month. And… I’m so relieved. The first few days were strange; I felt like I had double vision when I walked down the hall, like I could see both the hallways I was actually in and the ones I had left in Princeton. I couldn’t decide which place was more home. 

That lasted about 3 days; then it felt like I had never left. I knew I had missed the friends I worked with, but I hadn’t realized how closely we really worked together. We’re constantly supporting each other and problem solving. There are still some problems, but the bottom line is - where isn’t there? Does the perfect work environment exist, and even if it does, is there a human alive who would recognize it and appreciate it for what it is rather than find some fault and complain?

It’s about balance, my friends. Find your own, and if anything has to tip the scales, let it be the happiness your family brings you. 

“Everything happens for a reason.” Yeah, okay. Proved you wrong again, stupid saying. I could have saved myself quite a bit of trouble by waiting out what I thought was unbearable. I made a few new friends along the way, but that’s really the only plus. 

I guess there’s one more- I proved to myself (and to others, though that was never the goal) how brave I could be. Feels a little like tooting my own horn to say it, but a lot of others have said it to me. They’re slightly awed by the fact that I took the chance I did. Did it work out? Well, no, so there’s that backwards sort of anti-lesson. But most have told me they wouldn’t even be willing to try what I did. 

I don’t normally consider myself a brave person. I don’t like new social situations, I don’t like roller coasters, I’d never try skydiving. But I did meet a dude from another country online and went on to meet him in person. Eventually married him, so that risk worked out. I studied abroad in another country, moving somewhere I knew very little about, and came to call that city my own. I know London better than New York, love it, and can still get around with confidence and ease. I wanted to have a baby and took optional medical ventures when it didn’t happen and manifested my beautiful baby girl. 

So maybe the lesson is there are types of bravery and strength other than just the physical. Chances are worth taking sometimes, if not always. 

And do your best to water your own grass where you need it most.