#4: Glitter!

All that glitters is classroom gold, as they say. Teachers know that the best way to jazz up any classroom activity is to add some sparkle. After all, what parent doesn't like to spend his or her evening shaking the glitter out of the bottom of a child's backpack on the day that all those zazzy art projects are sent home?

You can tell how long someone has been teaching by the amount of glitter on his or her person. Here's a scale to help you out:
A few glitter flecks on the face = probably a first year teacher.
Glitter in the hair and/or under the fingernails = has been teaching for a few years; starting to understand the importance of making classroom projects sparkle.
Walks around in a cloud of glitter akin to Pigpen's cloud of dust = master teacher.

You can also tell how long someone has been teaching by the level of glitter detail on class projects. See the scale below.
Glitter and glue are strewn about the page willy-nilly, as if the kids had actually done the whole project themselves = first year teacher.
Glitter details are done by the student, but the professional-looking loops, swirls, and dots indicate that a teacher administered the Elmer's = has been teaching for a few years; starting to understand the importance of making classroom projects sparkle.
The student's name is carefully written in glue in calligraphy and then dusted with just the right amount of glitter in the student's favorite color = master teacher.

Want to know how dedicated a teacher is to using glitter? Just look at the teacher's glitter supply.
One bottle each of red and green glitter = only uses the holiest of school supplies for holiday projects.
Bottles of glitter in every color of the rainbow are neatly lined up, in rainbow order, on the closet shelf = appropriate devotion to glitter usage.
Neat arrangement of glitter bottles spanning the rainbow, plus three or more bottles of all the colors mixed together (a sign that no flake of glitter is ever, ever wasted) = master teacher.

#3: Hoarding

Teachers are master hoarders. Those people on the reality hoarding shows can't hold a candle to some of my teacher friends. Of course, teachers are often justified in their squirreling-away ways; given their budget restraints, teachers often have to be creative and "make do" with what they find, or make their own versions of fancy teacher-store supplies. Teachers quickly learn to be inventors--everything can be something else! Even if they can't see its potential yet, good teachers know that those Lean Cuisine containers/bottle caps/wire hangers can serve a purpose in the classroom. And old magazines--that's the BEST! If you have a stack of old magazines, I guarantee that I know a dozen teachers who would be happy to take those off your hands for you. If you have four hundred baby food jars taking up space in your garage, just drop them off at the front desk of any school anywhere and it will be like Christmas for those ecstatic educators. Of course, hoarding does pose a problem for teachers, in that most classrooms do not have much storage space. So teachers learn to be creative with their stash of trash. Nevermind that little Michael can't fit his book on his desk--he's in charge of holding on to the class supply of broken crayons! When teachers run out of space in their classrooms, the truly dedicated ones turn their own garages into hoarding storage. If you have not reached this level yet, you may want to consider how dedicated you really are to furthering young minds.

Master teachers can take this a step further and actually plan their curriculum around the trash they've accumulated. They spend the summer rinsing out baggies, stashing away used strawberry containers, and flattening all of the cardboard boxes in the pantry, "just in case." Hey, you never know when a desire to teach checkbook skills and a need to dispose of all the checks you saved from your old bank account will occur simultaneously! A master teacher is always ready for just such an occasion. A mountain of old ads from the Sunday paper could become tomorrow's lesson on counting money. Your husband's yard sneakers that smell so rank that they are no longer allowed in the house are perfect for a center on shoelace-tying practice. A box of wine bottle corks can easily become a science experiment in buoyancy or a raft-making project (just be prepared to field questions about where you got three thousand corks).

It's true what they say: One man's trash is another man's lesson plan inspiration.

#2: Laminating

Show me a teacher who doesn't like to laminate, and I'll show you someone who just doesn't like to have a good time! I have yet to meet a teacher who doesn't prefer a crisp, shiny laminated page over a dull, regular one. Teachers like to laminate for several practical reasons. Due to budget restraints, teachers hand-make most of the decorations and bulletin board displays for their classrooms. Laminating protects their hard work for years to come and keeps them from reinventing the wheel every August when they assemble their "Hopping Along to Kindergarten!" lily pad wall scenes. Laminating also ensures that their file folder games, decodable books, and... well, really, everything in their classrooms, is protected from all those sticky little hands that just love to touch things.

All practical reasons aside, laminating is just plain fun. Walk into the teacher workroom at any given time, and I guarantee there will be a teacher in there laminating, cutting out laminated shapes, or waiting impatiently for the laminator to heat up. There's something so rewarding about stuffing a wrinkled, watercolored piece of student art into the machine and then watching it emerge smooth, shiny, and professional-looking. The laminator instantly makes every child a master artist! It is also really fun to color heavily with crayons, stick that in the machine, and watch the heat melt the crayons into a blurry rainbow mess. You know, just for kicks.

The only downside to laminating: cutting out all of those darn slippery pages.

#1: Rubber Cement

It is universally understood that the best adhesive product of all is rubber cement. It is the perfect consistency--two parts sticky mixed with one part goopy. It dries clear, it can go through the laminator, and it doesn't wrinkle the paper. The best part about it is that teachers get to paint it on with a little brush, allowing for extreme glue-application precision. Teachers' love of rubber cement has nothing to do with the smell, we promise. That familiar, comforting, reminds-me-of-my-childhood, stinks-up-the-whole-room-in-a-good-way odor that we can't help but inhale as we glue project after project... we don't look for reasons to use rubber cement in lieu of other adhesives just so we can get our hands on that fragrant little bottle... We like it mostly because... wait... what was I talking about?...