Botox Teacher

I really need to get some Botox. Not for vanity reasons, but because my face is just too expressive. I am an open book. If I had a good dose of Botox, perhaps not everyone at school could read my face. It would be like a mask, something I believe is necessary as I delve into the wonderful chaos of staff meetings and planning meetings and department meetings and how many meetings about meetings about emails do we teachers really need anyway?

Apparently more than my patience tolerates. I do like that my students can read my face, though. They can tell with one raised eyebrow or one serious frown when I am disappointed or merely redirecting their behavior. That is rather effective, I must admit. Especially as it does not interrupt my incredibly important lesson plans. I can use body language and not miss a beat in continuing instruction. If perhaps a student would be so bold as to pull out a cell phone and hide it behind her purse while I'm reading a very important poem, I can gesture easily and not miss a line.

I read John Ashbery's poem "... by an Earthquake" today because when my students came into class and asked what was troubling me, I chose not to gossip. I will not. Never. Ever. speak a single, solitary word about another teacher in my classroom. It is unseemly. Unprofessional and unnecessary, really. Instead, I chose to read Ashbery's poem. Poetry as Botox. And what a great poem for the occasion, really. "B, in love with A, receives an unsigned letter in which the writer states that she is the mistress of A and begs B not to take him away from her" and so on and so on with the A, B, even X characters in this poem.

I could discuss teacher A who betrayed teacher B, but really... Ashbery's poem is just so much better than any story I could ever tell. And who really cares about my experiences anyway? That is what I absolutely love about being a teacher. Instruction is honestly the most important task of life. There are no hurt feelings, no disappointments, no frustrations that can steal my joy from instruction. For fifty blissful hours, literature is the sole purpose of life.

And perhaps my expression of delight is more important that a good, solid dose of Botox.