My brother is a sergeant for the St. Louis police department. Whenever we go out to eat, he sits facing the door. When we go to see a movie, he checks the exits and scopes the theater before sitting down, then again before the movie starts. Once when we were watching his daughter at her softball game, a car backfired. We all jumped, but his reaction was to stand up, face the noise and reach for the gun that wasn’t there. No matter when or where, he’s never off duty.

The night before I started student teaching my friend came over with ice cream to help calm my nerves. In case you didn’t know, ice cream is a cure all. I recommend it. Anyhow, as we sat with spoons and a half gallon of cake batter, I lamented. I didn’t think I could do this teaching thing because I didn’t feel I was bossy enough. I worried my laid-back nature wouldn’t work in a classroom where having an opinion matters. She assured me, although I don’t remember how, that everything would be fine, and I can honestly remember thinking, well, if I bail now I’ll have to start paying my student loans back so I may as well go.

My cooperating teacher only had one complaint on the review she filled out for me at the end of the first week – I needed to be louder. More forceful. Not quite so timid with the kids. “Oh, man, I knew it!” I said. I explained to her that I didn’t know how to do this, to mind, to care about things enough to take charge. To boss. She thought for a minute, then wrote something down on a piece of paper, folded it in half, and sent me down to the teacher’s lounge with it and a pen. “Don’t open it until you get there. Get yourself a Coke, answer the question, and don’t come back until you have it answered.” Gulp. Now there’s a woman who wears bossy pants.

That note burned in my hand all the way down the hall and the two flights of stairs to the lounge. But I found once I got there I wasn’t so eager to read it. What if I couldn’t answer the question? What would that mean? Darn those loans. Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I folded back the note. And the question was brilliant in its simplicity: "If you did know how to be bossy, what would that look like?" By making me use my imagination, my strong point, she was able to help me form a clear picture of the reality.

Fast forward to today. At the refill station at Taco Bell a little boy overloads his cup with ice and looks around for help. Without a word I take the cup from his hand and dump half his ice into my cup. At the playground two boys are throwing rocks at another and, without even realizing, I tell them to cut it out. And they do. At the bowling alley the group next to us can’t figure out how to enter their names. Of course, I show them how and check in on them later on.

So guess what? I have an inner bossy. I don’t know how long it was there, if it lay dormant and was awakened by teaching or if it developed over time, but there it is. Like my brother, I’m never off duty. Are other teachers like this? I’m not sure. I’ve not noticed my friends behaving like I do when we’re out together. Maybe it’s a mixture of personality and profession. I dunno. I still haven’t gotten used to it, though. Sometimes I’m in the midst of an act of bossy before realizing what I’m doing and I get that weird déjà vu thing. Turns out the line between imagination and reality is very, very thin.

By Sharon Linde, Education Blogger and proud wearer of bossy pants for SmartParenting.