You Might be a Teacher if...

...you love going to teacher convention.

On Wednesday of this week, all of the faculty will get on the bus; yes, the school bus, and will head off to the annual teacher's convention. Once there we will check into our little rooms with our designated roomies and then the big night out!
Yes, the faculty of the school where I currently teach will be more excited than you can possibly imagine about a trip to Cracker Barrel. Partly we are excited because someone else is picking up the check, but most of my colleagues are excited because it is Cracker Barrel. Now this would not be particularly funny, except for the fact that the previous two high schools where I taught while living in New Jersey did the exact same thing on the first night of teacher convention! It must be a teacher thing??? And just as a side note... I have yet to see any crackers in any barrels there.
On Thursday morning we will get up VERY early and jockey for position for the key note address. This jockeying comes in several varieties. There is the: send one person and about 50 programs or notebooks and save as many seats as possible as close to the front as possible variation. Then there is the send the seat saver variation. "Little sister seat saver" will take you out if you even think of sitting in her rows of "saved" seats. There is the LARGE mean looking male school administrator whose look will just make you turn around and go to the back of the LARGE convention hall variation.
Once seated we will enjoy singing a few choruses where everyone will sing at the top of their lungs and in as many parts as we can muster. I personally like this part. Once our key note session is over it is always fun to watch several thousand, mostly women, charge out the convention hall and scatter like lemmings looks for cliffs.
I should make mention here about teacher wear. It is at teacher convention that all of the teacher clothes come out of the closet! The cute jumpers and vests with pumpkins and leaves,the ABC's and the pencils and apples will also be in large numbers. There will be schools sporting their school shirts something closely akin to a corporate logo. No where else in the world will you see these fashions and you will never find out where to purchase these clothes. Actually I think that there is a great swap shop, where teacher clothes just keep being handed down from one generation to the next!
Right after the scattering we will find our way to the "sessions" or workshops where we will be schooled on a number of topics ranging from "Glue and Paste 101" to " What do you mean I can't have a grade book anymore and have to learn to do this on the computer?"
But the creme De la creme of teacher convention is visiting the vendors!!!!!! Here we find row upon row of an amazing assortment of vendors selling, giving or promoting just about anything you can imagine. There mixed with the textbooks publishers,are fundraiser pizza and cookie vendors. There will be colleges represented where you might NEVER send any of your children, and maybe a few where you might. There are always a number of camps represented who do outdoor education camps. And lest I forget to tell you.. it is here in vendor land that we get freebies! You might get free pens, and toys and books and t-shirts, food and tote bags in which to carry it all! At the end of the first day most of the free stuff is gone, but tomorrow there will be the endless drawings for the endless little pieces of paper you filled out hoping to win something REALLY big like a giant ruler or a bigger tote bag. This year I am hoping for the gas card give away! I must be a teacher... cause I just love teacher convention!