Looks like I’m going to owe some money to the school district for which I work. Yeah.
When you’re going to school, you pay. Learning costs money. When you become a teacher, you get paid to facilitate learning for others. Learning costs. Teaching pays.
I am a teacher, and I get paid for my services. But the fact is that I learn way more than I teach. That means I’m a student. I’m going to owe someone some money.
Today I was sitting with some students—one of them had asked me a clarifying question about the assignment, so I sat down at their table. One student told me about her great-grandmother, who was a little girl during the Great Depression. Today she is in her nineties, lives alone and her birthday is on Christmas Day. When the great-grandmother was a little girl, her mom asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She didn’t hesitate—her biggest wish was a Mickey Mouse watch. Her mom was broken hearted as she told her that they just couldn’t afford it. Then before her birthday arrived, her mom died, but not before she had taken what little money she had, and purchased presents for her family. When my student’s great-grandmother opened her present, it was a Mickey Mouse watch. Now, every year on her birthday, her family gets her a brand new Mickey Mouse watch. Wow.
I’d better get my checkbook out.
Out Here in the Middle 