English Teachers Are Human, Too...at least, some of us are....

I think everyone has had a bad experience with an English teacher in his or her lifetime. You know, that nit-picky perfectionist who constantly corrected everything that was uttered in his or her presence and made you feel worthless of your privilege to speak English. When people ask me what I do, and I reply that I'm an English teacher, apparently the worst image next to Freddy Kruger is conjured as I usually get a certain facial expression as a response. You know, kind of a just-tasted-something-sour-smelled-something-foul-oh-and-I'm-constipated kind of look. Then, they start to watch for me to say something grammatically incorrect, spell something incorrectly, or not know the meaning of a word (or at least be able to use it in a sentence). Then, they'll pounce on me and try to jerk away all of my teaching credentials or act as if I'm only impersonating an English teacher. So, people don't want the perfectionist evil English teacher, but it's what's expected of you.

I thought about this today because I've overheard people commenting on their own spelling or you can see the worry on their faces as they determine whether or not they've split the infinitive (ok, they don't *know* they've split the infinitive, but you knowwhutimean...). We're fallible. Because we're teachers, it doesn't mean we always know EVERYTHING! Allow us to stumble, don't look at us smugly when we falter, and know we're exposing our inner souls on here, and we might just mistype or forget that blasted comma. However, we don't necessarily need to be given a copy of "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" or "Woe is I" to take home and ingest.