Winter — Break??

I woke up this morning from yet another set of school dreams.

You know, I always have this bright shiny idea in my head that I’m able to compartmentalize, to truly break from teaching during a holiday. Not like I’ve been grading papers, checking school e-mail, or thinking about my students all the time.

Whatever.

It’s just that school dreams seem especially unfair. I mean, it’s enough that I think about school stuff of my own free will. But in my sleep? That’s my time to fly, to explore, to go beyond limits.

Yes, yes, I know school dreams hold meaning and significance. All dreams do. Take, for example, the dream where the kids are in my classroom and I’ve done absolutely nothing to prepare for them. I have no plan, no materials ready, no homework, no idea what I’m doing — and of course, the kids totally notice. Or the dream about how my students are in the classroom, but I’m not. Maybe I’m making copies, or hanging out talking to someone, or finding my way around the (of course) foreign school hallways – seemingly unworried about needing to get in and teach. I get it, I get it. There are definitely fears of incompetence and powerlessness behind those dreams.

So, my friends, tell me this. Exactly how should I interpret the latest installment, in which I am not only a Superintendent of Schools, welcoming irate parents into my office as I sit them down to my comfortable lime-green couches and chairs, but I am doing so as a heavy-set, middle-aged, African-American woman?

And for that matter, why school dreams every. Single. Night? Why won’t they leave me alone, if only for a day or two?

Consider me stumped. Ideas? Thoughts? Interpretations? I welcome them all.