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<- this is near my house. I used to live in Germantown, and my friend and I searched without success to find this address to hand deliver a postcard.

As a teacher, I share similar feelings when students ask me about my personal life....not with these specific activities, but there is such a disconnect between how we must act as educators verse how we act outside of the school building around our friends or family.

I think the close connection between a teacher's personal and "moral" choices and his/her professional position is extremely interesting. In our History of Art Education class we've learned about how females were deemed more suitable teachers for their "inherent" moral compass, and how this control of privacy contributes to the profession's lack of prestige.  We don't think of Tiger Woods as a worse golf player because of his indiscretions, yet anonymously received personal images of a female teacher holding a beer are cause for formal dismissal. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/06/sunday/main7323148.shtml?tag=stack

My experience as a teacher is so different than my childhood memories. I think of teachers as people with unlisted phone numbers who lived in a different district than where they taught. As far as students were concerned, they LIVED in their classroom, and teachers were happy to keep that misconception as a shield of privacy for their personal life. I didn't get into teaching with that idea. My little brother had a first grade teacher who attended teeball games and recitals. I was in 9th grade at the time and knew I wanted to be THAT teacher, the one who would attend teeball games. Kids these days have enough absent parents and lame adults. I wanted to be a good role model and positive force in their life, at school and in the community. My assigned student teaching placement was one district away from my university, but happened to be the town where I was living. I had a 1.5 mile commute to the high school. In our row of town houses, a 9th grade boy was my next door neighbor. And suddenly, the teenagers who had been ringing me up in the grocery store for 5 months became my students. Then I moved to China and into the tiny tiny circle that is the expat community. My next door neighbor is the first grade teacher. His two kids are my students. Three floors down, the two apartments are also staff families with their staff kids (my students). The middle school principal lives in the next building over. If I don't draw my curtains at night, I'm living in a fishbowl where his family (including two teenage boys and a 5th grade girl) can see directly into my living room and bedroom. And it's not just staff kids that live here. Other students also live in our apartment complex. All circles of my life---students, coworkers, family, friends---blend into one. I ride the staff school bus with the same people that I hang out with on Friday night, worship with on Sunday morning, and eat turkey with on Thanksgiving. My first year here, I spent Christmas Ev

well apparently that post was too long... I spent Christmas Eve with my principal and his family. I slept over at their house, then spent Christmas day in my pajamas with him, his wife, and their two sons (1 1/2 and 5). His wife is excellent at code-switching, calling me Auntie Stephanie on Christmas and at family birthday parties and Miss M. at school. Over here, teachers are known to have class parties at their apartments. No use trying to keep your address private. They'll be going to their friend's house and accidentally ring 502 instead of 501--now they know where you live! I resisted for almsot two years, but before the May exam, I had two study sessions at my apartment for my 11th and 12th graders in AP Art History. It was kinda fun. I chose this life. I was warned before I moved here and I actually like it. If/when I move back to the states, I'd like to live within walking distance of my school. Somehow, I feel like it won't go over as well. Parents will think I'm a creeper. But not here in Asia, where it's socially acceptable to see your (same gender) students and their (same gender) parent while you're naked at the spa (think Roman baths). You have to draw the line somewhere and this is a little too exposed for me. I won't participate in the spa culture. But then a boy in 4th grade announced in the middle of class "I saw your brother at the spa!" Great, while my 17 year old brother was here studying for a semester, you saw him naked. Awesome. I haven't seen him naked since he was 3 and I was helping with potty training. And I'd like to keep it that way.

I agree with James, I have the same feelings about my personal life and my students. I do think it's very interesting how teachers are held to such a high standard, but public figures like Tiger Woods or political figures really aren't. When I think about the teenagers I teach, I realize my role in their life, but I think my students are also highly influenced by the people the look up to or see in the media.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I noticed the postcard senders used pinks and reds and had both the heart symbol and human hearts.