A Teacher is a Person Too

      I love seeing students outside of the classroom. It's actually sort of an entertaining pastime. I'll be walking down the isle at Best Buy, turn the corner, and there is one of my students and his mom. It's the strangest phenomenon, but it's true with every student for every teacher. This student might be the boy who during the school day tells you what he had for breakfast, what color his room is, where he went out to eat 3 years ago, and how his sister was grounded. He spends nearly seven hours a day, five days a week with you. He may be that kid in class that can't stop talking for two minutes. Here in the real world, he is like a deer in headlights. He won't say anything. He'll make his mom do all the talking, nodding in agreeance, but maintaining a look of complete shock on his face. When this happens, I'll usually tease the kid (I mean, come on, it's the perfect opportunity). Kids simply don't think of their teachers a people too. It's pretty funny. They think we live at school.
      I remember, a few years ago, when my third grade class was in line in the hallway, stopped as another class passed us. (Sometimes school hallways could use traffic signals.) My class was stopped in front of the entrances to the bathrooms. One of the second grade teachers came out of the bathroom, and LS, who happened to be in that second grade teacher's class the year before, was shocked. "Mrs. Mendels, YOU go to the bathroom?!" She couldn't have been more surprised.
      It's this predictable behavior in kids that helps you, as a teacher, spot a student in a store from three isles away. Teaching in a building with over 600 students, I simply do not know all of the students. But being one of only 30 teachers, most students in the building know me. So you can tell when you run into a student from your school. They have the deer-in-headlights surprised-face look as they stop dead in their tracks. Sometimes the parents might know who you are and talk to you, and other times you simply have to pretend you know exactly who they are. "Oh, hey. How are you doing? Are you having a good summer? Who do you hope you get as a teacher this coming year?" In the end, it doesn't matter what you say. They are just surprised that you go to the grocery store.