Read the Fine Print

If your mailbox at home is like ours, it is filled with “special offers” almost on a daily basis.  These range from reductions on prices for oil changes, eyeglasses, sports physicals or dog neutering. Of course, the oil change does not cover synthetic oil, the eyeglasses are for single vision only, the sports physicals are between the hours of 1:00-1:15 p.m. and the dog neutering is only for dogs that do not have wet noses.  Maybe that junk mail is an offer for a special on laminate flooring installation, but the ends in 10 minutes and by the way, materials are extra.  How about five rooms of carpet cleaned for $119.00, but the fine print says up to a room size of 2” x 3” and only shag carpeting is included?  What about that “free” checking account?  Folks, there is no such thing.  The “$2.00 off any purchase of $15.00 or more”…if you pick up the entire dinner tab for the table next to you.  You get the point – there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If it’s too good to be true, then it is too good to be true.  This is not to say that all offers or coupons are bad, just be sure to read the fine print or you may be making payments on beach property in Nebraska. 

Take a look at your teacher contract.  The one that you signed.  In ink. With a date on it.  Within the contract is a bit of “legalese” verbiage such as “All of the terms of Chapter 182 of the Acts of 1915…” and “acts supplemental thereof and amendatory thereof” and a bit more that will exhaust you just deciphering it.  This is all under the title of “Regular Teacher’s Contract” (I would rather receive the “Exceptional” or Highly Effective” teacher contract, but I guess those don’t exist).  Regardless, in the entire contract it never really specifies what you are signing up for.  That’s where the beauty and dare I write, nobility, of being a teacher comes in. While others in different professions may say, “I didn’t sign up for that”, we cannot truly say so.  Yes, in signing up to be a teacher, we signed up for everything included in that.  Huh?  What’s “everything” mean?  I don’t know.  What comes your way.  We have to be the teacher in an academic sense.  We have to be the teacher in setting examples.  We have to the counselor.  We have to be the Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, or whatever gap needs to be filled.  We have to be the statistician. We have to be the planner. We have to be the mind reader. We have to be the support system.  We have to be a data analyzer. We have to be the communicator. We have to be….We just have to be whatever is needed.  Thanks for signing up.