As if this week weren’t enough with the late night Wednesday and the parents flowing freely through our classrooms the last two days, the good teachers of Pemberton must attend the Pemberton School-Year-Kick-Off Meeting today…a Saturday. First of all, I feel exhausted. Second, I’ve hardly seen my family this week. Third, I’m not getting paid extra for this because I’m a salaried employee. Fourth and finally, Saturdays are “survival days.”
They are essential to every working mother’s week. It is the day on which you catch up from all the things that you missed the previous week and make all the preparations you can to survive the coming week. Never mind house cleaning….who has time to do that? Besides, what’s a little dust, anyway? Nobody ever died from dust that I know of. But dying from embarrassment because your kids are wearing the same clothes to school unwashed for the bzillionth time, or from starvation because you haven’t had time to buy food at the grocery store? Those are distinct possibilities. Without my fabulous, supportive husband, I would never make it. He’s taken over the full management of laundry duty and grocery shopping, God bless him, while I sit here through one presentation after another at the very first Pemberton school building.
Unfortunately, it was quite a hike to get here, but Linda had kindly arranged for me to ride with teachers from another Pemberton school closer to my home. It was so far for them (and me), that the owners gave them permission to take the school’s small bus. I met with them in the parking lot of their school and introduced myself, feeling like a proverbial and literal fifth wheel. They were nice enough, though, and I was grateful not to have to drive through unfamiliar suburbs and highways. I was also cognizant that these might be my future co-workers, although they were not aware of that fact. It was interesting to be able to sit back like a fly on the wall and observe the different personalities.
After slightly less than an hour, we arrived at the quaint old building. Beverly has a knack for picking out the picturesque. It’s a much smaller school than any of the others I’ve seen, but the building, a previous church school, has been restored and maintained beautifully. It sits on Pemberton Avenue, which is where the owners say they got the name. It was not, as I assumed, just a snooty, British-sounding name picked out for the elitism of it. However, it works well for them in that respect, too.
The day proceeded with endless meetings and presentations of curriculum. I’m lucky. I’m a “newbie.” This was all fresh and somewhat interesting to me, but I looked around at the faces of the veteran teachers I know. They’re bored and wishing they were somewhere else. The highlight of the day came when we were served lunch: sandwiches from Panera.
At last as lunch was wrapped up, we were given permission to leave. From what little I’ve learned already about the Pemberton upper management, I’m surprised they kept us through lunch. They could have pushed the start time a little earlier in the morning and avoided feeding us and paying the hourly staff for an extra thirty minutes. Maybe I’m being unfair, though. At any rate, I was glad to be going home.