The Teacher's Nightmare

Most people know the actor’s nightmare: I find myself on stage and I don’t know my lines. Christopher Durang’s play by this title took this idea and made it comic, but to anyone who has experienced this dream, it is not funny.

There is a teacher version of the actor’s nightmare. In this dream, I am struggling with some part of class. In one of my reoccurring nightmares, I leave a classroom and walk down the hall to my next class and then, inexplicably, find myself two miles away near a local forest preserve. I am panicked because there is no way I will get to class on time. In several versions of this dream, it is the first day of school.

Although I retired from teaching several weeks ago, I am having teacher nightmares often. A few nights ago, I dreamed that my classroom had been turned into a cafeteria and I had to find a new room. I couldn’t make signs to put on the doors or tell my students where to go for class. I even dreamed a wonderful set of twins (who just graduated) was trying to help me, but I couldn’t find the new classroom.

I am used to these dreams. They usually come a few days before school starts at the end of summer. Although it may be surprising that a teacher of more than thirty years gets nervous before the first day of school, I often don’t sleep much at all the night before I meet my students for the first time. I get very anxious before school starts!

The first class session sets the tone, so I plan it the way I would stage a play. The first week builds a culture in the classroom, so I make sure that all the pieces are in place long before student names are on a class list. Once I do have a list of students, I memorize their names, make nameplates for their desks, and learn as much about them as the student records system will tell me. I attempt to carefully tailor things to make them feel comfortable and excited to be at school.

Perhaps it is my theatre background or my English teacher disposition: I like control. I am well aware that my control is limited, but when approaching a class, presentation, show, or many other endeavors, I like to get ahead of the curve and prepare as much as possible. Then I am free to adapt to circumstances. Then I don’t have to worry about lesson plans or materials. I can be fully present for the kids.

Of course, as we all know, the best-laid plans gang aft agley (sorry, that’s Scottish. Mr. Burns’ poem says that about mice and men) – go astray. That is part of the plan. My preparations serve as foundations on which I can build learning experiences that work well for my students.

Which brings me to now. My teacher nightmares usually come before meeting new groups in the fall, but it’s summer. They usually signal my anxiety at the start of a new year and acknowledge the importance of getting off the right way with each new class.

I am not teaching now. I will not be teaching high school in the fall. Why am I having teacher nightmares at the beginning of my retirement?

There are things we can plan. There are things we can control. However, when working with children (or most human beings), control and planning are limited. Uncharacteristically, I have chosen to make the beginning of my retirement fairly unplanned. I have given myself the freedom to go slowly and I have been avoiding commitments. While I do have control of my retirement activities, they are not planned like a daily lesson, month-long unit, or the arc of a course. The retired teacher is more unplanned than the working teacher ever was.

And that is scary. The possibilities are scary and exciting. I am teacher and student in this new retirement school. I am not who I was, so I am taking time to get to know the new me. I am changing. The course title is in flux and the content is being written as I go along.

It is exhilarating and powerful. It is the retiree’s joy and the teacher’s nightmare.