merit of teachers

I was dubious. Couldn’t I teach my children everything? (including how to pick up trash as shown above?) I mean, come on. I am a devoted mother. I am an educated woman. I’m at home with them. Clearly I’m their only-ever teacher on every-thing-except-Calculus-don’t-ask-me-how-I-survived-AP-Calc. Another big wrong-o lesson for this insufferable woman over here living at my house and wearing my favorite target pj dress with built in bra that’s not fit for wearing all day like I do. This summer we had the extreme fortune of a handful of dedicated and lovely young lady teachers for the kids. I couldn’t love them more. And neither could the kids. From my little feisty lady’s music class wherein she daydreamed before class about how she and Teacher Julia could somehow play the instruments–JUST US, MAMA–for the whole class instead of sharing with the other kids, to a myriad of swim coaches at the two-week boot camps that we ran back to back to back to back to back, I was floored. We indulged in plenty of sewing JUST YOU AND ME, MAMA this summer too. But I’m not the best teacher. I can’t get this machine to really work. The magic of the teacher who isn’t the mother is deep. She offers an outside voice that somehow my selective-hearing-syndrom children could hear and heed. She captured their trust and their hearts and encouraged them with the energy of a 20 some year old (oh, those days gone by) whilst I’m concerned about…