For years, I’ve had people in the community ask me what teachers do on those “days off” – also referred to as “Institute Days.”

It used to offend me greatly. After I got older, less worried about people’s opinions, and as my crass friend says “My give a darn got busted” (insert word in place of darn if you are so inclined), I started realizing that people really wanted to know what happens on teacher institute days.

This year, as we still struggle through hopefully the last remnants of COVID, the teacher’s institute is totally online. Let me tell you how the morning went.

We all signed in at the school office and holed ourselves up in the classroom behind our computers. We went to an email and clicked a link, which took us to an online meeting room. Most of us had the good sense to leave our microphones and cameras off, but I’ll talk more about that later.  

Heck, I’m lucky I shower on a day like this. I mean, why bother when no one will see you or stand close to you?

Again, digressing. Can you tell it’s Friday when I write this?

Our keynote speaker this year was the famous teacher Ron Clark, who has written books and even appeared on “Survivor” once. He is an educator with good, old-fashioned common sense, and it would behoove all of you to give him a listen.  He is especially realistic on the topics of how education has been “dumbed down” and also the attitudes of parents these days.  

Still, he’s not a negative sort. He just tells it like it is.

We all listened to him for an hour, and many of us were so impressed and amused by him that we attended a break out session with him in which we could ask questions. This involved just staying on the link we were on previously.  We could type comments in a chat area, and the comments would be read and responded to by Mr. Clark.

When I went to some other online sessions, the real fun began. At one point, I was laughing so hard that I thought “OK.  Here’s where I die alone, in my classroom, flat on the floor with no one around.”

Here’s what made me laugh hysterically.

The facilitators of the event are usually top dogs – administrators appointed by the upper echelon, or the head honchos who might normally host a bi-county institute with in-person attendees.  

Well, the esteemed guy who ran this first workshop and got it all set up came on camera and informed all of us that we’d be starting in a few minutes. I made sure my microphone was off so large numbers of teachers wouldn’t hear my school bell ring or worse yet, me belch up my breakfast. I mean, I’m all about manners.

This superintendent had a distinctive voice. After he came on camera, all official, and introduced our workshop presenter, he accidentally left his microphone on. 

I kid you not. A few minutes later, I heard his voice again. “Yea, I’d like a Number 14 with bacon.” I don’t know what he was ordering or whom he was talking to, but I completely lost my composure.

I quickly peeked at the other workshop attendees to see if anyone was on camera. There were only about three of them who seemed confident enough to leave their cameras on.

They were all smiling ear to ear, so they must have heard the food order.

Later in the day, I heard two teachers gossiping about another teacher, talking about how this teacher was unrealistic about raising her own children.  Goodness. Their conversation sounded like something I’d put in one of my columns when, on a rare occasion, I’m feeling all judgmental about parenting.

Just when it started getting juicy, they must have realized they weren’t muted.  

I noticed that not a soul unmuted to tell them that we could all hear them. I almost felt like I was on an old-fashioned party line.

I spent a lot of the day just laughing at and admiring the way teachers can behave. We all have the same struggles, complain about the same things, but usually end up feeling motivated by something we’ve heard during our institute day. In addition, we almost always come away learning something.

I shared emails with colleagues on some topics I learned about, filled out some paperwork for the state to prove I’d attended my umpteenth workshop, and made sure I was ready for next week. I kept busy the whole day, as usual.  

There just weren’t any students at school to distract me.

So, that’s what I did on my “day off” this year.