Many students wonder about what some of their favorite teachers do after school. Everyone lives a different life. How different a life can a teacher live with a 7-hour school day? Every teacher has different responsibilities depending on the classes they teach. Many students would assume a physical education teacher has less planning to do than a math teacher. So the question is: how different are certain teachers’ lives from those of students and other teachers? The Times interviewed one of Lafayette’s students’ favorite teachers, Kevin Lawson. Lawson is a Physical Education and Health teacher at Lafayette.
An opportunity to interview Mr. Lawson arose during his health class, B1. Mr. Lawson teaches many courses in fitness, including weightlifting, management, physical education, and health. He has his students doing something interactive and beneficial, especially in their lives now.
Lawson is 50 years old and has been teaching at Lafayette for five years. Lawson wakes up at 5 a.m. to prepare for his full day of teaching, and leaves the house at 6:15 a.m. He doesn’t have a daily cup of coffee; he doesn’t drink it at all. This is important because many teachers drink coffee every morning to wake themselves up, but Lawson doesn’t need it. Lawson dislikes the taste of coffee and believes it is unhealthy for him, so he chooses not to drink it.
Lawson arrives notably early at Lafayette, at approximately 7 a.m. Most students don’t enter until 7:45-8:16 a.m., when the first bell rings, and the last bell rings at 3:15 p.m. In contrast, Lawson typically remains at the school until around 3:30 p.m.
Some days after school, when the weather’s nice, Lawson takes advantage of the outdoors and plays golf. On other days, his primary obligation is to pick up his daughter from school. Every night, he puts 30 minutes into grading students’ work. This helps Lawson go to bed by 9 or 10 p.m. so he isn’t tired for the rest of the week. On the flip side, most students don’t go to bed by 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. because practices, games, and homework extend well into the evening.
The final bell is merely a pause, not an end. Lawson’s lessons on nutrition, safety, and mental resilience might not blossom overnight. Still, they’re all crucial pieces of information that will help those students make thousands of decisions in the years to come.
