Teaching at an elementary school means that things happen that sometimes you just can’t anticipate.  Like a meeting I had this morning. There we were, sitting around the table, having a lovely discussion when we hear “I think I just ate some paper!”.  Totally out of context, having nothing to do with anything we were talking about.  You might think I’m talking about one of the kids, but I’m not.  I’m talking about a colleague.

Team meetings are lot like my classes – you just never know what’s going to happen.  Today we had nothing on the agenda, other than celebrating another colleagues’s birthday.  And, seeing that it’s us, of course we celebrated with donuts.  Doughnuts held by a napkin by said previous colleague. Napkin partially eaten with said doughnut apparently.

We’re an interesting bunch, this specialist team, and despite having been together slightly less than two years, we’ve created a pretty good bond.  This is not to say we’re all alike – oh no, not by a long shot.  We come from different backgrounds, are a variety of ages and different genders, with different experiences.  We all came from different schools, all run very differently and we’ve somehow managed to gel our ideas and experiences pretty well without killing each other, although I’m sure we’ve all thought about it at one time or another during this transition to a new school.

In this short amount of time, we’ve eaten together and had drinks together, we’ve  supported a team member during the loss of a parent and celebrated another’s engagement.  One of our team loves to bake, or at least bakes REALLY well and we all benefit from her talent.  We text each other with news, funny stories, Kentucky basketball and promises of those yummy baked goods.  Did I mention we like to eat together?  We talk about kids, possible grandkids, sports, wedding plans, parents and in-laws, usually with irreverence with just a hint of of sarcasm, a lot of humor and a pinch of love thrown in.

We’re the only ones in the building who understand the pros and cons of being labeled a “specialist”.  Not always treated like a “real” teacher but expected to do everything a “real” teacher does, teaching the “fun” subjects that obviously aren’t as important or as hard as the “real” subjects.  On the other hand, we get to teach the subjects where so many kids just shine, those kids who maybe struggle elsewhere, those kids who we can see have special gifts in our areas.  The kids we can encourage because we too chose an area  we have a passion for, despite the difficulty of teaching 400+ students.  We are the ones in the building who will get to work with these students for six years of their lives, watching them grow and learn, and building relationships with them other teachers will never be lucky enough to have.  We are also the ones who can see when strategies aren’t working for some kids over the years because we see them struggle with the same behaviors over and over.

We are a strange little family with the bickering mom and dad, the bullied baby boy and the sage old grandmother who is old enough to know when to stay out of stuff with a younger sister we don’t get to see very often but hopefully more next year.  We all work hard in our respective areas and tend to be control freaks about what we do and how we do it.  We are all consummate professionals who want to be the best we can be to represent our school, faculty and specialty area, sometimes at a state and national level.  There has never been any professional jealousy – we all encourage and congratulate each other for our opportunities and accomplishments.  Yes, we are your basic, loving dysfunctional family.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great specialists over the years and they have become wonderful friends.  But this bunch is special and not just because one of us eats paper.  This bunch has taken a leap of faith to leave something comfortable to join a brand new bunch of people to create a brand new family. And I for one am glad we did, if for nothing else, for the baked goods.