The first stage, commonly known as the I-wish-I-had-cancer stage, lasted approximately 8 weeks. There is nothing you can do to ease your discomfort during this stage, unless of course you know a good anesthesiologist who would be willing to jam an epidural into your brain.
Thank goodness the second stage, otherwise known as the I-wish-my-students-had-cancer stage, only lasted 40 minutes. I was teaching critical thinking via poetry explication at the time, with song lyrics, but I discovered that there are three things you should never discuss in the classroom--politics, religion and song lyrics.
Oh, and ghosts. It's astounding how controversial ghosts can be.
And also, never accidentally refer to any of the other teachers as brother or sister.
Oh, or say, "I would now like to turn the time over to . . . " during student presentations.
Anyways, I was teaching critical thinking via poetry explication when I went through the second stage of becoming a high school teacher. I looked back and forth, and back and forth between the angry students.
"Uh . . . whatcha doing?" I said.
"Thinking critically," they replied.
It struck me then that I was doing my job too well. So I blinked and shrugged and said, "Whatevah."
Then I put on a YouTube video of Glozell explicating Ke$ha.
"This is how you do it," I said.
It's all about modeling when you're trying to teach 95 teenagers how to think mo' bettah.
