Skip to main content

no collar worker

It happened.

I was at the park with the family and the cell phone rang. I answered it and heard this young girl's voice say, "Mr. Harmless?" ... only it was spoken with a southern accent.

Now there is more than one thing wrong with this. The first this is that I have moved, so anybody that knows me as, "Mr. Harmless." is miles away. The second thing is that this is summer time, and everybody that knows me well, knows that in the summer I am not a teacher! The third this is that it was a southern accent.

After about 10 seconds of trying to remember whether or not I was actually "Mr. Harmless" I very weakly replied, "Yes?"

You see, I knew that it had happened. This was my first contact with a new student... and I was jolted back into the onrushing reality of the end of the summer.

I was hoping she would then say, "... just checking, we won't bother you again until the end of August!" But that didn't happen. In fact, having come out of my summer mental hibernation, this southern accent speaking girl had the nerve to ask me a question...

"... what supplies would you like to have ordered?"

Darn! This was going to require some actual thought. I stumbled around for a couple of minutes and then I finally came up with the most intellectually sound response that I could muster. I said, "... Ummm, I don't know."

I think she finally decided that I wasn't about to give her any suitable information to deal with, so she ordered me the typical supplies that the other teachers tend to order.

You've heard of the white collar worker, and the bluecollar worker... But I would like to say that I am a proud representative of the no collar worker.

No skills, just a willingness to work. That's me!

Comments

  1. "....never be the saaaame, who are ya gonna be, when you're on your on your knees...." *switchfoot-innocence again on learning to breath* i was listening to this song when i read your blog and that's the only part i heard. and i was like hey! our school's never gonna be the same! *kind of a random thought that didn't really have anything to do w/ the song lol* you made our school better, mr h. i ran into a moral dilemma the other day and i was like sheesh where are the harmlesses. i pray for you guys every day. i bet God's gonna use you for some awesome stuff!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Leave a thought of your own.

Popular posts from this blog

The Seed and The Soil of Education (New Learning Project Part 1)

(This is my entry for the first part of my project for my New Learning course that I am taking.) Introduction Corn Fields in Illinois I have lived the majority of my life in the Midwest: mid-state Illinois to be specific. Where I live, farming is everywhere. My grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of my family were farmers. My dad grew up on a farm and owned farmland, well into my own adulthood. But, even if it wasn’t in the family, I still would have been surrounded by farming. You can’t go more than a mile outside of my city’s limits without encountering miles and miles of fields. Most of our highways, and even interstates, are located between acres of farmland.

This too shall pass...

Gam zeh ya'avor (Hebrew) "This Too Shall Pass" Welcome!  According to Google Analytics, this is by far the most visited post that I have ever written.  If someone comes here from a search engine, most of the time they are looking for " this too shall pass quote " or simply " this too shall pass " on Google or one of the other search engines. I am sure that most of the time visitors are looking for the originations of this quote, but I have to wonder, why is this quote on people's minds? Why are they pondering the passing of events?   Here is my thought: It is probably because most of us have realized that the adult life is much harder than we ever imagined it to be. There is more pain and more sorrow than we had ever imagined as children, but we have learned that time keeps ticking. And as time continues to flow things pass. In fact, even the really big things and the really hard things will still pass. If you are here because you are thinking ...

The Minnesota Crime Commission wrote:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his uncle's watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.