This is an entry I have been wanting to write for a while, but I had to wait until I had a little more teaching experience - and a greater collection of tales to tell! - to provide readers with the high-quality awkward stories that an entry like this deserves. A huge shout out goes to the 2014/2015 school year for providing me with two of the five tales in this entry. This entry is dedicated to you, man!
Question of the hour:
This has been a long-debated issue for educators everywhere. On one hand, living and teaching in the local community saves gas money for the commutes to and from work. Living in the area also enables educators to sleep in a little bit relative to those who must commute from further distances and shows that the educator has so much faith in the local school system that he/she chooses that system for the education of his/her children.
Living in close proximity to students comes with a price, though. A teacher runs the risk of running into students everywhere outside of work, whether that teacher is jogging in the park, dining at a restaurant, or buying food at the store. It doesn't sound that bad, right? How about if that teacher is jogging in the park shirtless or wearing short shorts? What if that person is at a restaurant with his/her embarrassing/outspoken relatives and/or drinking alcohol? What if that person is buying sanitary products at the store? Are these really times in which that person wants to turn around and hear, "Hey, Mr./Ms. So-and-so! What's up?"
There have really only been a handful of times in which I have run into students outside of school, as I have never taught in the community in which I lived. I prefer to withhold a lot of information about my life outside of school from my students in order to avoid breaking the professional barrier between teacher and students. Therefore, it is my personal choice to stay out of the local community and live elsewhere. That makes the few times I have run into students outside of school rather unexpected, especially given the settings in which I ran into these students. But alas, enough talk: you probably are more interested in hearing specific stories.
Here they are: the times I have run into students outside of school, in order from my least awkward to my most awkward experience.
#5: At J.C. Penney
I was walking around J.C. Penney one evening with my mom. We were looking at coats. One of my students from the learning center was there with her friend, and she said hello. That's basically all there is to that story. Not that amusing, but a little unexpected nonetheless.
Moving on...
#4: At an ice cream store
It was May of the year in which I did my student teaching. I had moved home from Ann Arbor and was living with my parents, just one city north of my student teaching placement. It had been a rather stressful work day, and my mom took me out for an ice cream cone after dinner. After we had gotten out of the car and were approaching the ice cream shop, I saw a teenage girl staring at me, and I realized it was one of my students. We waved hello, and then I awkwardly stood in line with my mom, unsure of whether I should have a conversation with my mom about "real life" topics with a student within ear shot.
#3: While carrying a plate of cookies in the streets of Ann Arbor
This story is my favorite. Now, I am aware that most people find me a little odd, whether you are my student or one of the people who knows me as "Stephanie." I'm sure the following experience reinforced this belief for one of my students.
U of M, finals week, April 2012. It was my first year after I completed my master's degree, and I was back in Ann Arbor visiting a friend of mine who was a U of M senior. She wanted to take a study break, so she invited me to her apartment to help her bake cookies. Our idea was that we would walk around campus, find our friends who were studying for finals, and surprise our friends with free cookies. We baked a couple dozen cookies and set foot on an adventure to brighten the lives of stressed students with these delicious, golden edibles!
We walked around campus and passed out cookies to our friends. We passed out cookies to homeless people. We even got hungry and passed out cookies to ourselves! (Sorry I'm not sorry!) As we walked down State Street on the final stretch of our cookie delivery journey, I heard a voice calling my name - but not my first name, my teacher name! I raised my eyebrow and looked around. Who on earth would be on U of M's campus? At that point in time, all of my former students were in high school or younger!
It turns out that one of my students that I had taught the previous year was at U of M for a one-day high school program. She was in the car with her dad and baby brother, and they were parallel parked on State Street. I gave all three of them cookies and explained that passing out cookies to random people was my weekend job. We all had a good laugh.
The best part is that I am pretty sure she believed me, and I'm sure she had great stories to tell her classmates at school that Monday. In fact, she probably still believes that every weekend, I walk around Ann Arbor passing out cookies to strangers. Best. Rumor. EVER!
#2: At Comicon
This story could have EASILY been #1, had I decided to dress up in a costume this year. I have been to the local Comicon a total of twice in my life: in 2013 and 2015. When I went in 2013, I was with a group of friends that included my sister, my sister's college roommate, and two of my best female friends from high school. We all decided to have the full Comicon "experience" by dressing up in costumes - because hey, why not go all out? This time, however, I was returning to Comicon as a full-time teacher. I did not believe it was likely that I would see any of my students at Comicon, since the event took place about forty-five minutes away from the community in which I worked, but I wanted to play it safe and not dress up in a costume just in case...
Well, I guess a couple of my students made the commute with their families because I did see one of my students there, and a different student told me the following Monday that he was there as well. I was counting my lucky stars that the time I ran into students at Comicon was NOT the time I was dressed up in costume! I have no problem with my students knowing that I go to Comicon, but with their easy access to Smart Phones and the Internet, I'm going to have to make it a habit of going sans costume from now on.
Finally...
#1: At the water park
This story could have been much, much more awkward and embarrassing than it was, but I'm just going to throw this out there: it is the fear of every teacher to randomly run into students at water parks and lakes, places where people normally wear bathing suits. That's just awkward soup in a bowl for everybody involved!
On the 4th of July this year, my friends and I decided to go to a water park. We spent several hours of that afternoon going on water slides, lazy rivers, and wave pools - naturally, all as we were wearing our bathing suits. As I was waiting outside of the changing room for my friends to finish changing back to pedestrian clothes after our time at the park was over, I saw one of my students from this past school year walk by with a group of friends. I had my sunglasses on and my hair up, so the student did not recognize me, and I decided it would be very awkward to approach the student and say hello, so I continued sitting and waiting for my friends. I was just thankful that this did not happen earlier in the day when my friends and I were running around the park in our bathing suits.
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There you have it: awkward tales of random student sightings outside of work. At some point in the next few years, perhaps I will revisit this entry and compose an update with more recent stories, especially because - dun dun DUUUUUN! - I received a new, out-of-state job for the 2015/2016 school year, and I am going to be living in the local community for this job. Hurray, potential for new awkward experiences...?
What do you think, teacher friends: Do you prefer living in the community in which you teach, or do you prefer to distance yourselves from work? Have you ever run into students outside of work? Where was it? What happened?
