Elementary, My Dear...

In order to adequately and lucidly set down the events of this day before my brain goes to mush with the lateness of the diminishing hour, I have decided to momentarily set aside Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh and write this post. Of course, I will subsequently return to Cottleston Pie and the Wu Wei Wu as soon as I am done here, but being the incurably Bisy Backson that I am, I felt I ought to relate my experience at the elementary school today before I am unable to do so in a clear and concise manner. Not that I always have a problem with disclarity and longwindedness (of course I don't). I am not one of those people who sits in the stands yelling "Digression!" (from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye) every time someone ventures away from the point or takes a slight detour toward point M when traversing the line between A and B. Besides, I have friends who are German, and you can't be friends with a German if you have a problem with thought processes that are sometimes as clear as clay and soliloquys which tend to be as short as a standard State of the Union address. That being said, I will now retreat from my own digression and come to the point.

To begin with, I stayed up far too late last night, as is my usual custom in the event I am either reading a book I enjoy (by the way, Holden Caulfield is one my of new favorite literary characters, despite his pottymouth) or anticipating some new type of experience, and I whole-heartedly expected that teaching fourth-graders would be just such an experience for me. For that purpose, I did "not go gentle into that good night" (from Dylan Thomas's poem "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night"), no, indeed, because of my anticipation of "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns" (from Shakespeare's Hamlet). By the way, I don't mean death; I mean the Crimson Point Elementary School classrooms. I really ought to try harder to go to bed early on the nights before I have to substitute-teach, but I can't force myself to do it. It's a curse. If I were scheduled to meet the President of the United States tomorrow, I would no doubt show up for my appointment on time or early, with bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair, and a half-empty Rockstar in my hand. Oh well, I'll get over it someday.

Alors, this morning I went to the school for my assignment, arriving exhausted (as I knew I would) and exactly 34 and a half minutes early in order to have sufficient time to glance over the somewhat cryptic lesson plans left by the usual teacher. Finally, with two minutes to spare, I successfully deciphered his instructions and waited for the approach of impending doom in the form of nine- and ten-year-olds. I was never afraid that they might sneak up on me like Morlocks in the dark (see H.G. Wells' The Time Machine), because I was forewarned of their arrival (they were extremely boisterous) approximate 3 minutes and twenty-nine seconds before they had even descended from their respective buses.

Well, the day turned out to be fun, despite my initial nervousness. I had some kids that I know from church and so on, and they proved to be fairly helpful and well-behaved. One of them even told me that she was going to be a good girl today because she did not want me to tell her parents that she behaved poorly. I don't normally like being thought of as a tattletale, but if it motivates children to behave then I am all for it.

We started the day off with long division, and I was glad to find that we were doing math I could help with (I have substituted for pre-algebra and algebra classes in which I was absolutely no help at all, for which fact the students ought to have resented me and did not. At least, not vocally). These children were begging to assist at the board and I obliged. Some of them were even miffed when I chose the same people to help multiple times instead of using people who had not had a turn (though in my defense, it is hard to keep track of 20-odd students in a classroom and who has and has not had a turn at the board).

For the next period, we had reading and vocabulary. Some of the children banded together to become a public nuisance, but I put them in their places during the vocabulary portion by glaring at one naughty bespectacled boy for a full thirty seconds without blinking like "the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about..."

"You shut yo' mouth!"

"I'm just talking bout Shaft!"

Oh, well then, hmm, I guess, yeah, well, shoot; we can dig it.

"Ya d--- right!"

"Digression!"

Anyway, that boy tried to stare back at me like I was going to back down, but he didn't realize that a Care-Bear stare has nothing on the Scare-Glare that I shared with him in there. He quickly quieted his rebellion and worked without defiance for the rest of the period.

Afterwards, one of the girls approached me on her way out to lunch and told me I had a voice like a gameshow host. She did not say which one, but I can only hope she was talking about Alex Trebek and not Drew Carey.

As part of my assignment, I had to perform recess duty, which means watching the children as they play tackle football when they aren't supposed to and find ways to hurt each other when no one is looking. The recess passed almost without incident, except one girl did get whipped in the eye with a speeding jumprope. However, she was the only casualty of that particular fifteen-minute break, so I count myself lucky, as should they.

The last hour and a quarter passed quickly and fairly quietly, although I did at one point raise my voice, which I had told them I do not like to do. The students had informed me earlier in the day that their normal teacher likes to yell, "FREEZE!" in the middle of class if they become too rowdy. As I walked among the desks, I noticed that the students were chatting instead of working on their science packets, so I stopped and yelled at the top of my voice, "FREEZE!"

They jumped. About a foot. In unison.

Then they laughed.

Then one girl said, "You are now officially Mr. Reno." (Mr. Reno is their usual teacher)

Overall, the day was a positive experience. Now, I could look back on it and remember all of the naughty children who tried to pass notes, and look at each other's work, and talk when they weren't supposed to, but I won't. I absolutely won't. No, that would spoil the whole day, especially the end. During the last fifteen minutes, before everyone had to catch their buses to go home, many of them congregated at the board and began to write messages to me, saying things like "We love you as a teacher, hope to see you again"; "you rock"; " U R awesome"; "You're the best substitute ever"; and finally, "Knock knock. Who's there? Dwayne. Dwayne who? Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning!" (a moldy-oldy joke from the Boys' Life magazines, but the sentiment, if there was any, was still appreciated).