I teach children: When to keep their mouths shut • How to sublimate anger politely

Excerpts from The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway, which inspired a song that described some of our moods/lives:

This is my workplace.

This is where I earn my definition, the place that tells me what I am.

Work is not a problem. I work in a school.

I teach children.

I teach them:

  1. routine
  2. when to keep their mouths shut
  3. how to put up with boredom and unfairness
  4. how to sublimate anger politely
  5. not to go into teaching

That isn’t true. And then again, it is. I am never sure what it is I do.


The nice thing is that I need not be present when I am working. I can be outside myself, watching from the corner of the room. Getting to work is a problem, handling mealtimes is a problem. But not the job. Something always attends to that. Kids like me. I am only the drama teacher and not a real threat. I let them wear make-up and play. Today there will be improvisations and trust exercises, silence games. No, work is not a problem. It never has been.

I am the problem.


Some of us are reading it together. Feel free to join us!

Perhaps this book inspires diverse thoughts we post on different communities. If so, this could be a "travelling" book club, where we @-mention other members to inform them of each post. Expose each other to new communities.