I am a middle school teacher. Our lives as teachers are models, whether we want them to be or not. The children notice everything about us. They even notice the things we don't notice about ourselves. Their gaze is like cold, clear water that washes away the self-created fictions of adults and bares us for exactly who we are. They assess us from eaves to foundation. It can be soul-crushing, as anyone who has been on the receiving end of a 13-year old girl's sarcasm knows. The only…