By Erica J. Ringelspaugh

The best part of being a real teacher, one with a contract and a classroom and freshman advising capabilities, is the keys.

This evening I rode my bike the mile and a half to school, punched my code in the black box next to the back doors, waited for the click, and walked in.

On a Friday at 8:30 pm. I am powerful. This is awesome.

While completing practicum training in Mosinee, student teaching in Stevens Point, and long-term subbing in Tomah - a time when I was creating everything from scratch and still discovering efficient grading techniques - I lugged four preps worth of books home and back, straining my back, and assigning three different bags to the task just to stay organized. I threw them in my truck at night and had to set at least one of them down to unlock the door of my apartment. I made jokes about certain books earning frequent flyer miles traveling to school and back with me. I stayed after school until 7:00, working diligently in the English Office at Stevens Point Area Senior High. Jane, who owned the cubicle next to me, packed up her work for the evening, slid her coat around her shoulders, and stopped by my desk to tell me straight out, “Go home, Erica.” Every day. I could only remain seated and smile a mysterious smile; I was not nearly done. I couldn’t enter the building after I had left for the evening, unless there was a late basketball game or show choir performance. Even then, the wrong doors could be locked, or the gates could be down, and I would still be stuck. I have raced around SPASH after realizing I had forgotten an important task, tugging on the double doors to every stairwell, and climbing back into my truck, resolving to “come in early tomorrow.”

As a full-time teacher with my own set of keys, during August in-service at Adams-Friendship, I unlocked the doors and snuck in after the school day had ended and everyone else had gone home; I wanted to set up a student filing system. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and peaked into the book room door, where my wing keeps copies of novels, old textbooks for reference, and miscellaneous supplies. I found hanging filing frames, took them back to my room for use in writing folders, and used a screwdriver to set them up. I played music on my garage sale CD player, and celebrated by liberating some of the textbooks for my own classroom.

During high school, I worked in a library, loving the library best when the lights were off and the books whispered their secrets to each other. So now, when I wanted to create sample essay packets for my freshmen who are learning to structure their first five paragraph themes, I used my keys to let myself into the library. On that Saturday, I set up a copy station close to the windows and played with fantasy, copying and dancing with myself, satisfied with my work.

Today, in the middle of eighth hour, I walked down the hall and let myself into the book room again, this time with a student who wanted to decorate my bulletin boards, a task I’ll gladly delegate. Student work hangs all over my classroom – everywhere but the still-blank, pitifully neglected bulletin boards. Leslie usually finds it difficult to sit through study hall without fidgeting and talking. Leslie and I took paper and stencils from the book room, and she worked quietly through the hour, drawing pumpkins and coloring leaves.

In the weeks since I signed my name next to 502 on the official key sign-out log, I have discovered the best copy time to be late at night and early in the morning. Why wait in line? Come back later. Use your keys. Use different colored paper. Make packets with staples. Make multiple series of transparencies. The janitors promptly learned my name and face, when, after they mistook me for a student walking through the halls at 8:30, 9:30, and 10:30 at night in my flip-flops and sweatshirt, I showed them my keys.

Now, I still use the same canvas bag from student teaching to carry home my students’ writing journals, but much less often, and only because my couch is more comfortable than my desk chair. A young teacher without children of my own at home, I’m free to leave after school, eat dinner and relax, pet the cat and water the plants, and come back to unlock my door, grade, plan, and clean, TLC on in the background.

I just use my keys.

Return to New Teachers page

Posted November 28, 2005