Just what kind of colleague are you anyway?

There is something I've told my students that rings true for teachers as well. Our kids are with each other more of their awake hours than with their own family. Be it before school, walking and watching at playground duty, at lunch or after school, these adults are our daytime family. They are the only adult voices you're going to hear during the school day usually except for parent volunteers. And, They.Get.It.  They know what it's like to experience that high of witnessing a child experience their own eureka moment and the low of having a child give up.  We share about our personal families, commiserate when the kids have been stuck inside for indoor recess for a week due to rain and raid each other's ideas.




Cathy was the other third grade teacher at St.Gabriel's. We both were part of the founding faculty when the school opened. I know that when my new principal told me that the other teacher had taught in Catholic schools for twenty three years, I was basically prepared for nun shoes and someone who would insist on things being done the "old" way. I couldn't have been more wrong! Quiet yet what a dry wit! She was heaven to work with! These days, she's retired and taking care of her grandson while her daughter and son in law work.
Cathy and Percy, her husband, are our son's godparents. While I was teaching at St. Gabriel's, we traveled to Ukraine to adopt him.

 I worked with these folks at Koennecke. It took a little while for us to learn each others style and personality. As you can see though, we got pretty comfortable. Keith is now a middle school band director.  Nothin' quite like being woken up by tuba! And yes Keith, it was about 6:30 a.m. and the walls were vibrating between the cabins!

 Betsy and Angela, two of my Steiner Ranch Elem. cohorts, at our daughter's wedding in 2006. We started at the same time...survived the high ropes course (I was the first to climb that 50 foot pole and jump off at Newks only because I knew if I watched others, I'd chicken out!) We were three of the six who had a second grade lock in to raise funds for CAMP camp http://www.campcamp.org/   which my own daughter had been to years before. How I ended up staying the night with the boys from two classrooms, I'll never know! But I'm sure if you talked to those kids now as high school sophomores, they will tell you we raised a lot of money for CAMP by reading and even had the Round Rock Express mascot come to read (or at least nod and make motions while I read for him because dogs don't read.) Even more importantly, they could tell you about our field trip to CAMP where they experienced a temporary disability for the obstacle course. Except for my Caleb who uses a head array to propel his wheelchair and to communicate...he was our inspiration to choose CAMP camp for our grade level pay it forward project.

This is Lisa, an Aggie through and through, she agonized with me while waiting to see if we would be blessed with another child, this time by open adoption. She comforted me when the first two matches fell through and drove with us as the videographer to Waco to meet our new daughter, Hannah. She and her husband Wiley, are Hannah's Godparents. It's pretty fitting that Hannah took her first steps to Aunt Lisa.

I guess what it comes down to is that as educators, we are community, we are family.