Snow Day 

The phone call came at 5:50 this morning.  No school today. May went right back to bed, but I was comfortable with my coffee and a good book, so I stayed up.

A snow day is always a gift -- a snow day the week before Christmas even more so. Suddenly you have a whole day to wrap presents, to put up the tree, to enjoy the immense luxury of reading for pleasure. Today, I'm going to write my thank-you notes. Not for the gifts I'm about to receive, but for those I've already been given in the two-plus years since I decided to become a teacher.

To Bill Teunis, the high school English teacher who sits on my shoulder when I write, frowning at every unnecessary word.

To principal Sue Dell, whose joking comment to May after a school board meeting in the spring of 1999 -- "I don't suppose Tim would be interested in teaching?" -- led me to send in my resume.

To my children, who unanimously supported my decision, while also warning me that it wouldn't be as easy as I thought.

To May, for making me promise not to come to any conclusions about my future as a teacher until after my second year.

To Ann Moller, English teacher, mentor, and member of the committee that interviewed me. Her first question was, "How good is your sense of humor?"

To Superintendent Keith Burke, who took a chance on hiring me and was generous enough to credit me with 12 years of related experience.

To the citizens on our school board who approved my hiring and who, as I learned from ten years of waiting up for May, devote countless hours to a thankless job.

To assistant principal Gib West, who hacked through the bureaucratic jungle of my certification process.

To Conval teachers, who spend 180 days a year in a crumbling airless building with nearly a thousand adolescents who arrive demanding to be entertained and who leave -- we hope -- having been educated.

To my students, who are aggravating, bumptious, callow, daffy, exasperating, frantic, generous, hilarious, ignorant, juvenile, knavish, loud, magnificent, numb, obstinate, precious, questing, rowdy, shy, testy, unfinished, vituperative, wistful, xenophobic, youthful, and zesty.

And to the unknown person driving the car in front of mine one dark day in my first year -- a day when I was ready to give up. Stuck in Peterborough traffic, I took a different route through town, only to have the same car pull out in front of me again and lead me all the way home to Dublin. I recognized it by its bumper sticker. It said "Follow your hopes, not your fears."

Thanks to you all.

Beginning Educator columns