Teacher’s Kid
by Avery
Oregon City, OR
Last year, half of my 8th grade class had my mom as their English teacher. When I first found out that my mom would be teaching at my middle school, I was very excited. Having my mom working at my school meant that I didn’t have to ride the bus, I could get lunch money whenever I needed it, and I could basically do whatever I wanted because she would know all of my teacher’s. I quickly learned that having a parent working at my school and teaching my peer’s had both advantages and disadvantages.
I didn’t want to ride the bus, so my mom took me to school every day. I arrived at school at least an hour before everyone else did. Most of the time, I didn’t have anything to do in the hour before school, so my mom would have me make copies or run things down to the office. What could possibly be more fun than standing by a copy machine for 10 minutes while it makes 300 copies? Not much. My English classroom was across the hall from my mom’s classroom, so I saw her mostly every day when I went to English because she was standing outside her classroom monitoring the halls during passing time. This didn’t bother me at all until I started to like a boy who was in my English class. He walked with me to English, but if I saw that my mom was standing outside her classroom I would turn around and walk with my friends and have him walk in front of us so that it didn’t look like we were together. I’m sure she had no idea that I liked him when I walked into English three steps behind him everyday. Although my mom’s classroom was at the very end of the hall, my teachers always managed to make it down there to talk to her, when I was “talking excessively” in their class or had multiple missing assignments.
The very best thing about having my mom teaching at my school was that I got to know my English teacher, who was also my mom’s teaching partner, very well. Mrs. Ray was fun, creative, and we became very good friends. I saw her before and after school as well as in class. She encouraged me to write about things that were difficult for me. I felt comfortable writing about anything and having her read it. We did a lot of fun things in her class, like making our journey projects. I think everyone should have a teacher that they can feel comfortable telling anything to because it makes school a lot more bearable.
There is a possibility that my mom could teach at my school again, and I know that I would live through it. Maybe she would have a TA so I wouldn’t have to make a thousand copies. I think everyone who has had a parent teach at their school before would agree with me that it has advantages and disadvantages. If they were writing about being a teacher’s kid, they would probably have essays similar to mine.
