One thing that I’ve really missed about coming back to school and leaving the classroom is my students. I loved living where I taught and being a part of my school community outside of the building. It was nice seeing students and their parents around Fredericksburg when I was out and hearing “Mr. Jacoby!” when around town. Every once in a while we’ll still hear it here, but it is usually “Mrs. Jacoby!” instead.

I’ve only been in three classrooms this year. A 3rd grade class at Burnley-Moran, a 6th grade class at Walton, and a 10th grade English class at Albemarle.  I spent the most amount of time in the Walton class, and ironically have seen one of the students from that class outside of the building twice! Once at Chipotle on Teacher Appreciation night, and once at Sam’s Club. She was with her parents both times, but not being a teacher anymore I didn’t really think I should say anything to them (especially since she was one of the students’ who did not get permission to have their image used for our case study). I suppose if I see her a third time, I’ll just have to take it as a sign and say hello to the parents.

I definitely miss my own kids though! On Friday night in Harrisonburg, I saw some James Monroe kids who’d been at Lafayette with me and ran on the track team at Walker-Grant while I was coaching there. It was great to talk to them! As the school year is ending in Fredericksburg, I’m sorry that I never got a chance to return for a visit. Not so much to visit the teachers who I can see or call up when I’m in town over the summer, but just to see my old kids who are in 4th and 5th grade right now. I hope they’ve all had a great year!

Five days until the semester ends officially. I’ve got 3 classes to attend between now and the end of the day, April 30. I’ve got some work to wrap up outside of class, and plenty to grade for EDIS 3450 before May 13, but things are starting to wind down around here. Two students in the office and graduating and leaving for jobs. It’ll be sad to see them go!

I’m lining up some EdTech-related internships in town. I’m working towards 6 credits of Ed.D. practicum this summer and another 3 in the fall, so I’ll still be working all summer, just not in the office I expect. Hard to believe that “summer” may be starting soon but it won’t mean much to me. Just no classes. I spoke with someone in Charlottesville about how everything in the buildings is going to be “SOL SOL SOL” for the next month. Ironic that I largely stayed out of the schools all year long and will be going back in for the most stressful part.

It has been a good year though. And it is looking better each day!

It is not too often that running and teaching intersect in my life, aside from maybe getting in the way of each other. But a recent interview by the Jamaica Gleaner with 100m American Record holder Tyson Gay brought teaching and running together for me. Gay stated that “Those distance people and field eventers need to get some love from the media too.”

The quote comes from a question about USA vs. Jamaica in the sprints, and Gay goes on to say that there is more to our sport than just the sprinting, and that our sport doesn’t get the attention that it deserves as a whole. That much is undeniable. People don’t pay attention to track & field, or don’t give it much credit, because they think that anyone could do it. It takes someone special, someone like Tyson Gay or Usain Bolt, to make people realize that our sport is special, and worth paying attention too.

KC and I love Tyson Gay. He’s a great sprinter and a tough competitor. He does his talking on the track. When I was talking about this quote with her (It was LetsRun.com’s quote of the day on April 8), we both used the word “humble” to describe Tyson Gay, almost simultaneously.

That’s when KC compared running to teaching. People put down the teaching profession because they think that “anyone can do it,” much the same way that NFL players think they could be world-class sprinters (re: Adrian Peterson’s quest for Olympic Gold). Every once in a while some post comes up on Facebook about “What do teacher’s make” or “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” and it will have some 4 billion “likes.” But policy makers continue to make teaching a second-tier profession, and track & field is a second-tier sport on ESPN and the like. Sports celebrities might be able to change that for track & field, and certainly the fans could. But how do we improve things for the teachers?

I picked the wrong year to start graduate school.

Last year, as a classroom teacher, I think we had zero snow days. In fact, our superintendent gave us the Friday before Memorial Day off to make up for it (I never understood all the built-in days and hours, shouldn’t we have ended the year early too?). My wife, meanwhile, in a school district notorious for cancelling often and early, only missed one day for the Earthquake that hit Louisa in August.

This year my former school district has missed a whole lot of days. It has to be somewhere close to 10 at this point. They’re out again today! I think they missed in the fall for Hurricane Sandy (so did UVA), and they’ve had a lot of snow this year. And it is a city school district, so it hardly ever cancelled since there wasn’t a lot of area the plows had to cover. My wife’s former district has missed 5 days in in the month of March alone! Here in Albemarle County she’s had a lot of days off too, which has been nice for her. Definitely making up for last year.

So I hope all the K-12 teachers are enjoying their days off this year!