Back to School Crud

If you've ever known anybody who attended any sort of convention, you've probably heard about ConCrud. Well, I've found something that's worse: Back-to-School Crud. I started not feeling well on Tuesday or Wednesday. Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time coughing. Today it's coughing and nausea. Whatever I've got is some sort of mixture of the common cold and a minor flu. I didn't have a class to teach yesterday which was probably a good thing since I probably would have coughed my way through it and been completely incomprehensible. Today will be my first experience teaching while under the weather.

I can see the Crud in the students, too. There's a few walking around with those little packets of tissues and some with bags of cough drops at the ready. I'm seeing more travel size bottles of hand sanitizer than ever before as kids desperately try to keep the germs away. I think I'm getting it twice as bad because I moved back into University housing so my Crud is a mixture of high school Crud and dorm Crud. I have rarely looked forward to a weekend more than these past two weeks.

Teaching just wipes you out. There's a tremendous amount of strain put on teachers (and students!) when it comes to meeting educational responsibilities and that's definitely a part of why the Crud comes back year after year. Most high school teachers are up before the sun (my alarm goes off at 5:30 which is later than most of the other teachers here) in order to get to school before the students so they can be available for before-school meetings, conferences, etc; Then there's the 7-hour school day. And the time where teachers have to stay after school so that they can be available for after-school meetings, conferences, etc; By the time a teacher gets home at night, they've pretty much got the energy to eat a small dinner and then go to bed. Forget the gym. Forget relaxing with a TV show or two. That's out of the question if you want a full night's sleep. Don't forget--many teachers grade at home. So instead of cracking open a book to unwind, they're still mentally in a school environment.

Being a student is trying, too. But there's a higher stress level involved with teachers. We don't get to hang out with our friends all the time because we're confined to one room with a rotating set of pupils. We can't just go next door and chill with Ms. Smith on our off-periods because we've got to make sure we're prepared for the next class. And high stress jobs mean the worker is more likely to get sick.

Teaching is hugely rewarding. Once you get past the Crud.

PM