“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
Jane Austin - Pride & Prejudice
Important: 10 Things You Should Know Before Dating a Teacher!
1. They are around unwashed kids all day. This means they have built up excellent immune systems, but are likely to be the carrier of all sorts of highly contagious diseases. You WILL get sick!
2. They will need to take a LOT of work home with them. Get used to sharing the couch with a pile of student’s homework.
3. They will frequently feel to need to correct your grammar - are you using the right subjunctives? Now would be a good time to find out…
4. The majority of their friends will be teachers. This means dinner conversation will centre around tales about naughty kids. Don’t offer your advice, they don’t want to hear it!
5. Similar to #4. Have advice about how they can run their classes better? Unless you want to hear your date ranting about “you have no idea how hard it is when you are at the coal face”, do not offer your opinion. They’re right, you DON’T know what its like to be facing 30 screaming kids each day.
6. They have a teacher’s voice that they are not afraid to use on you. You were once a student yourself and have been preconditioned to obey that voice.
7. They will tell a lot of lame ‘Dad’ jokes, even if they are only in their twenties.
8. Your date will have a preconceived notion of all your friends based solely on their names. There is a high likelihood that they have taught someone with that same name before.
9. While we are on the topic of names, if you ever want to have children with this person be prepared to have the child with the weird name. Teachers struggle to find names that they do not have negative associations with.
10. Every 10 weeks or so they will be on holiday while you have to get up early and go to work. Also, if you want to go away with them, be prepared to pay premium travel prices as they can only take time off over school holidays.
Despite all this, teachers really are a lovely bunch of people. They may not be any better than people from other professions, but they are certainly no worse!
