It is well-known that teachers’ work lives can all too easily seep into their home lives. Most of the time, this means marking in front of the TV or writing reports over dinner.
But the crossover can be physical, too: not only does teachers’ downtime start to feel like a non-contact period, but also their homes start looking like extensions of their classrooms.
This was the premise behind a question tweeted out by James Grocott, deputy head of a Suffolk primary:
Quick read: When it’s good to cry in front of pupils
Conversation: What’s your hidden un-teacherish talent?
Teacher life: When you use your ‘teacher voice’ at the worst possible time
Teachers were quick to respond with all the ways in which they had organised their home to deal with all classroom eventualities:
And one never knows what children one may end up living with next year:
Teacher items in the home
Many teachers, meanwhile, have taken to repurposing classroom tools for family use:
Among the most common possessions appear to be whiteboards, guillotines, metre rulers and laminators, suggesting that teachers definitely have the best house parties.
While sometimes the merging of living space and supply cupboard is intentional, in many cases it appears to have been a process of accretion: like it or not, the job will take over your life.
Meanwhile, as in school so at home: while several teachers report having a large stock of glue sticks at home, very few of them possess a functioning glue stick.
Others, however, have a broader interpretation of what is meant by “teachery things”:
