Learn Me Gooder

If you really think Reggie is coming in to work high on spinach every day, maybe an intervention is in order. Just watch out for the tell-tale side effects – headache, nausea, displeasing odor, and green teeth. Oh, and possible functional voiding disturbance.

I was off-campus yesterday to attend a meeting of other third grade teachers in the district. As expected, I came back to my classroom today to find a big mess and a list of complaints about the kids. It’s unfortunate, but this seems to happen a lot with the substitute teachers we get. I know some fantastic subs, and whenever I plan to take a day off, I try to secure one of them. That way, I know the lesson will be taught, my things will be where I left them, and the kids will be kept in line, even if I don’t specifically write, “Please do NOT let the kids make confetti out of my paper supplies and leave the room looking like a hotel suite that the Insane Clown Posse has trashed.”

When we have to go to these meetings, however, we don’t call our own subs, so it’s a random crapshoot as to who we get. More often than not, these random subs don’t follow the plans, and they let the kids get away with murder. It won’t surprise me at all to someday come back to school and hear one of the kids tell me, “That strange lady kept drinking funny-smelling water from a paper bag.”

I predict it will be Lakeisha or DaQuayvius, who have raised tattling to an art form.

Substitute teaching can be a difficult, thankless job. Unless you get a long-term gig, it can be hard to establish any kind of authority or relationship with the class. I know this first-hand, since I subbed for a while before getting certified.

My very first substitute teaching job was in a 7th grade science class. Ugh. Middle school – you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. And acne and raging adolescent insanity. I had five class periods, all full of hormonally super-charged raving lunatics posing in the guise of children. Loud, boisterous, pushing and shoving – and those were the GOOD ones!

The lesson plan had me giving a test over the respiratory system. Seemed nice and easy. The plan also said that the kids would almost certainly need the entire fifty minutes to complete the test, but that early finishers could read a magazine. As you might have guessed, the entire first class was finished within ten minutes. On top of that, the classroom had no magazines for these kids to read, and the kids had no books with them. The rest of the period closely resembled the pit at the New York Stock Exchange.

Thankfully, the planning period was immediately after the first period. I was bound and determined NOT to go through that ordeal four more times. I looked through this guy’s cabinets and drawers, searching for any kind of activity or worksheet related to the respiratory system. If I couldn’t find anything, I was prepared to have the kids make a detailed “Breathing Log.”

I finally found a word search, which seemed ideal, so I quickly ran off a passel of copies. I was so proud of myself when I had something to offer the early finishers in the next period. That is, until the giggling began. That was when I took a closer look at the word search. I had noticed that it covered not only the respiratory system, but also the digestive system and the reproductive system, but in my haste, I hadn’t looked at the list of words.

The very first word on the list was “anus.” Further down the list, “sphincter” reared its ugly head. I’m not sure if these words represented aspects of the digestive system or the reproductive system, but I pray it was the former. At any rate, I figured the science teacher would have some fun stories when he got back the next day, and it kept the kids quiet (except for the snickers and constant whispers of, “Have you found SCROTUM yet?”). So I continued to use the worksheet for the remainder of the day.

I did leave everything the way I found it, though, which is more than I can say for my sub yesterday. I came back today to find a bag of cough drops missing from my desk and some candy from my cabinet gone. I had left very specific instructions that said the kids were beginning to work on a project but that they were NOT to draw on the poster-sized paper yet. Several completed posters were sitting on my desk.

The kids said that the sub had the radio on while they were working. I thought maybe she had played a soothing instrumental CD for them, but Smoker Anna said some guy kept talking. Sure enough, my radio dial was set to an AM talk news station. I’m sure the kids perform better when they know the ups and downs of the Dow Jones Index.

Worst of all, the sub let the kids use my electric pencil sharpener, and someone – no one will admit to it, but I’m sure it was Joaqim – put a crayon into it. Now every time I try to use it, it produces a horrendous screeching sound that makes me think somewhere, a unicorn is dying.

In the world of Wiley E. Coyote, this lady would be scientifically labeled “Substitutius non Returnus.”

So my return to the classroom was slightly less than triumphant. But something pretty awesome resulted from my absence as well. There was another teacher at the meeting – well, there were LOTS of other teachers there, but not like this one. Her name is Jill, and without sounding like I’ve become a character from a Jane Austen novel, I’ll just say she rocked my world. We weren’t sitting at the same table, but I pretty much stared at her the whole time, and she occasionally glanced over at me and smiled. I could tell she liked me, and I’m pretty sure she was digging on the calculator watch.

During one of the breaks, I ventured over and introduced myself. “Hi! I’m Bright Red Tomato Face Man!” Somehow, through events I don’t even recall, I got her phone number. I haven’t called her yet, but I think I will this weekend.

I can tell you my respiratory system has already been affected – it’s kind of hard to breathe when I think about Jill – but here’s hoping my digestive and reproductive systems remain unchanged. Wish me luck!

Later,



Hot for Teacher



Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Space Cadet Academy





Hey buddy,



Thank you for your overwhelming excitement that I met a girl! No, I don’t have any pictures to show you! No, I’m not going to tell you her last name so you can cyber-stalk her on Facebook!

Yeah, yeah, yeah – I’ll tell you what she looks like already! Larry sent me an email with one single word – “HOT??” I could practically see the drool on the monitor.

So just to get you guys off my back… Jill IS a hottie. She’s about 5’4”, blonde hair, blue eyes, a quick laugh, and an almost visible peppiness. She said that people tell her she looks like Reese Witherspoon, and I could see why. To my knowledge, there are no extra appendages anywhere they don’t belong, she has a full set of teeth, and her voice is about as far from Fran Drescher as you could get. Nothing but pluses!!

I haven’t called her yet, but like I said, I’ll try over the weekend. After all, I know firsthand what her weeks are like, so I’ll wait until we’re not so busy.

I have to scratch the needle on the record now, slam on the brakes, and do a complete 180. Time to transition from the rose to the skunk.

I’m not sure how to put this delicately – I was feeling a bit gassy this morning. Uncontrollably gassy, apparently. At one point, as I was walking around the classroom, I pulled a one cheek sneak. I broke wind. Audibly. Not wrath of God audibly, but balloon-popping audibly.

When it happened, I glanced at Clarisa, who was sitting closest and who had a look of shock on her face. Before I could say anything, she exclaimed, “It wasn’t me!”

That took me by surprise, and I asked, “Excuse me?”

She reiterated, “That was not me!”

I just nodded my head and said, “OK,” as I walked away, secure in the knowledge that I had just gotten away with something. Eddie was sitting right next to Clarisa, and he SHOULD have heard it, but I guess since I didn’t say his name first, he couldn’t be disturbed. Nobody else was paying attention (shocker!), but if they had been, poor Clarisa would have taken the blame. After all, the universal rule is: “She who heard it, spurred it.”

While we’re on the subject of little farts, my young protégé, Victor, managed to do something today that few others have been able to do. He irritated me to the point of laughter. Twice!!

The first time occurred when we were grading the homework from last night. Every problem on the page involved the same steps and the same procedure. I was popcorning around the room, asking a different student to repeat the steps each time. After the first five problems, everyone seemed to have the routine down. On the tenth problem, I realized that everyone did NOT have the routine down, when I called on Victor.

Victor didn’t have a clue what to do to get the answer. Big surprise. I started to chew him out, telling him that his classmates had been going over the steps for the past fifteen minutes. I ended my rant by asking, “Where have you been this whole time?!?”

His sullen, pathetic, and extremely sincere response was, “Probably on the planet Zorlon.”

I shudder to think how I looked at that moment. Externally, I’m sure I looked angry and incredulous, mouth gaping wide, while internally, I was busting a gut. Long seconds ticked by as I just stared at Victor, unable to speak. Finally, I whispered, “Is that anywhere near Uranus?”

Then the giggles got out, but I masked them brilliantly with a fake coughing fit.

Later, during science class, Victor’s “uniqueness” struck again. I had just asked the class how looking at an animal’s teeth could tell us whether it was a carnivore or an herbivore. Several kids raised their hands, and I decided to call on Victor.

You would think that a child raising his hand is indicating that he has an answer ready to share. Quite often with my kids, however, a raised hand is merely their way of showing that they have HEARD the question, and that they are ready to begin thinking of an answer just as soon as they are called on.

This was the case with Victor. When I called his name, I could see all the signs that the gears had started slowly turning – eyes rolled back in the head, shallow breathing, soul has left the body – but no answer was forthcoming. After waiting a few agonizing moments, I started to call on somebody else, when Victor blurted, “I got nothin.’”

This time, I couldn’t help laughing.

This job is so full of frustration, but then moments like this pop up and remind me of why I got into it in the first place. Laughable moments like this and the joy of farting with no consequences. It’s a pretty sweet gig.

Talk to you later,



Forlorn on Zorlon



Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Beware the rise of the octagons





Hey bud,



I talked to Jill on Sunday afternoon, and we had a great conversation. Great, because it only lasted for about ten minutes, and since I’ve only got about fifteen minutes worth of material, I was able to save a little bit for our first date. I’m thinking we’ll split a Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity at the IHOP, then cruise the outlet malls, ending it all with $5 worth of Donkey Kong at the arcade.

I’m kidding, of course. We actually talked for well over an hour, with none of the lulls in conversation or stinging insults that you and I seem to encounter when we talk on the phone. I’m meeting Jill on Friday evening for dinner and drinks. No IHOP, no video games. No inadvertent flatulence, no distant planets.

Hey, speaking of video games, congratulations on scoring the big new contract with Microsoft for the Xbox! I mean, I know you yourself didn’t strike the deal, but that’s still awesome news, and I’m more than a little jealous. The coolest project I ever got to work on while I was at HPU was the 14-pin butterfly package with insulated alfjsfpjp3jr31aafji34139redfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Oh, sorry man! I put myself to sleep there for a second! I’ll be sure to stay away from my old job Friday night!

But back to your new project, if you play your cards right, maybe you can talk your way into being used as an avatar in some new video game. They’ve come such a long way since we were kids, back when the characters were usually just a big square body with a circle for a head. Very simple geometry, which, as it just so happens, is our subject this week.

I’ve got a quiz for you. Do you know the shape of a speed limit sign? How about a railroad crossing? A stop sign?

You’re correct if you said a rectangle, a circle, and not a hexagon.

I’ve noticed that every year, for some reason, kids are infatuated with hexagons. That is ALWAYS the first word they want to shout out when I ask them to identify any two-dimensional shape with more than four sides. I guess there really is something to be said for hex-appeal.

When I can get them to count the sides first, they are much more accurate in naming the shape. And they DO seem to know the shapes that go with those road signs. I need to find some way to get them to envision a series of street signs before choosing a name. Then maybe they would Yield their thoughts, Stop their hex addiction, and not resemble Slow Children at Play quite as much.

Yesterday’s activity was creating two-dimensional shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks. The marshmallows were the points and the toothpicks were the line segments.

Things were going swimmingly throughout most of the class. We had covered angles, lines, rays, quadrilaterals, and all sorts of other shapes. We were nearing the end of the lesson, creating the final shape of the day, when disaster struck.

I had just asked the kids to make an 8-sided figure. Suddenly, Felipe stood up and started howling. He was crying so hard the tears were shooting out of his eyes. My first thought was that he must have EATEN one of the marshmallows and forgotten to take the toothpick out first.

When I asked him what was wrong, I got no answer, other than the continued impersonation of someone falling down a bottomless pit. I scanned him up and down, and I noticed a toothpick protruding from the side (towards the rear) of his pants. It kind of looked like an Amazon native had shot a blow-dart at him.

I guess the old saying is true – “It’s all fun and games until someone gets a toothpick stuck in their ass.”

I so badly wanted to ask how the toothpick had gotten there – I mean, after all, they are flimsy little things. I would have thought the toothpick would break or lay flat if sat upon, kind of like a straw can’t go through a tree unless driven by hurricane-force winds. But more pressing was the fact that the toothpick was still stuck in his ass. Since Felipe was making no move whatsoever to remove the problem himself, I took it upon myself to pull it out. I was amazed at how hard I had to pull to actually dislodge it.

This was right at the end of class, so I didn’t get a chance to find out exactly how the incident had happened. I sent Felipe to the bathroom to clean himself up, and then it was time to go.

Today, we shifted to three-dimensional shapes, and away from toothpicks. I gave each student a net to cut out and paste together to create a geometric solid.

My morning class did pretty well. The only real problem was convincing the kids that their finished product should look like one of the pre-made shapes on my counter, and not like a wadded up Kleenex. Sure, a wadded up Kleenex is, technically, three-dimensional, but that wasn’t the point of the lesson.

The afternoon class was much more trying with my already limited patience. Before I could even get the kids started on cutting out the nets, I had to stop several times to review scissor safety and remind the kids that they should NOT clip the shears back and forth in front of their faces. I then had to place not one, but TWO kids in timeout for immediately clipping the shears back and forth in front of their faces.

After the kids had created their figures, I began the unenviable task of coaxing them to explore the attributes. How many faces? What 2-D shapes are the faces? How many edges? How many vertices? No, vertices, not puncture holes from your scissors.

As usual, I had about four kids that were actively participating and trying to answer the questions, while the others did their best showroom window mannequin impersonations.

Finally, the end of the day came around and it was time to dismiss the kids. As I called them to line up, Amir held out something to me. It was the metal tip of his pen, which he had unscrewed.

“Look, this is a cone!” he informed me.

I know I’ve been losing my patience with this group, and I’ve been frustrated more often than inspired. However, in that moment right before dismissal, one child demonstrated that he HAD learned something today, and that he could apply that knowledge to a real-world object.

It’s always nice to be reassured that SOMETHING is working. And honestly, any day that doesn’t end with a kid getting something stuck in his ass should be considered a good day in the history books.

Talk to you later,



Paul E. Hedron



Date: Friday, November 20, 2009





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: Whose whine is it anyway?



Hey bud,



I should have known that last email would catch Latya’s attention. He always was fascinated by objects being stuck in places they have no business being stuck.

I did ask Felipe the next day what had happened, and he just looked down and whispered, “I sat on it.”

I decided not to press the matter. We can only hope it wasn’t intentional. After all, sitting on an octagon is one thing, but I have no desire to see anybody purposefully plopping down onto a rectangular pyramid.

Nothing would surprise me, though, because in case I haven’t mentioned it, my class this year is extremely immature. I’ve never had so many kids that still suck their thumbs, display a total lack of listening skills, and repeatedly do the same things over and over and over again, despite being told not to. Case in point, Chassany, who, even after all this time, continues to get in trouble for talking in the hall.

I also notice that many of my kids have a supreme sense of responsibility when it comes to OTHER kids in the room, but they can’t seem to look after themselves. They are so worried about the kids around them not following the rules, but they never seem to notice (or care) when they’re not following the rules themselves.

I think it’s great for kids to take on responsibility, but one of my boys, Lex, always winds up taking responsibility AWAY from somebody else. I’ll ask one of the kids to hold open a door so the class can walk through, and seconds later I’ll turn around and Lex will be holding the door. Or someone in my class will ask if they can take a basketball out to recess, yet Lex is always the one who winds up holding the ball after lunch.

Mrs. Bird has started calling him “The Sheriff,” while I suspect he’s been reading his Spiderman comics backwards again and thinks that with great responsibility comes great power.

Yesterday, a few minutes before the bell rang at the end of the day, I asked everyone to clean up the area around their desk, as I always do before we leave the classroom. Usually, it’s the kids with the lumber yard right under their desk that ignore me and keep talking, while the kids with a few atoms of dust under their desk are lying prostrate on the floor, trying to make it clean enough to perform open-heart surgery.

As I was asking everyone to look on the floor around them, I looked directly at several scraps of crayon wrapper right underneath Lex’s chair. Rather than looking around his own area and picking up the trash, however, Lex noticed that Tyler, on the other side of the room, had a small piece of eraser under his chair. So Lex went running towards Tyler’s chair, did a power slide on his knees that would make Tenacious D weep with joy, and picked up the eraser. Then he beamed at me like I was going to award him the Silver Star Award.

And he’s only one of many who act this way. Still, the worst of it all is the tattling. I know, I know, I should be used to it by now. After all, tattling in grade school is like the kilt in Scotland – ever present, expected even, but never welcome. Nevertheless, it continues to annoy me.

I think that if teachers didn’t receive any base salary at all, but they were given $25 every time one of their students tattled on someone, they could all retire to the Bahamas by the end of the second year.

There is a significant difference between telling the teacher something and telling ON someone. For instance if Tina is hanging upside down from the monkey bars by her shoestrings and can’t get down, then yes, that’s something I need to know. However, I think I can do without hearing that Billy laughed when Peter dribbled chocolate milk down his chin.

There are many cases when I have to fight mightily to resist the sarcastic response.



Student X: “Jimmy pointed his middle finger at me!”

Me: “Really? Then he’s not doing it correctly.”

Student X: “He’s copying!!”

Me: “Wow, from YOU? Then he deserves his grade!”

Student X: “She called my momma fat!”

Me: “Your momma is not fat. But does she ever Porky Pig?”



Here on board the Tattlestar Galactica, two of my kids take things to the extreme.

I have unofficially given DaQuayvius the cabinet post of Tattle Tale General, since he assaults my ears as soon as he sees me each morning, laying out the entire school population’s misdeeds with military precision.

“Sir, status report, Sir! Tommy kicked Lisa’s book bag, Kelly was making faces at a second grader, and Donnell is jangling pennies in his pocket. In world news, Lindsay Lohan was busted on DUI charges again.”

Then there’s Lakeisha, who is constantly tattling about someone or something. And apparently, to anyone who will listen. Today, as her class was entering the cafeteria for lunch, I exited through the other cafeteria door, behind her class, so she was not aware that I was standing there. I actually witnessed her tattle on one of her classmates to some random woman walking down the hall! It was probably some poor second grader’s mother, just minding her own business, suddenly accosted by a little girl claiming, “Excuse me, Miss, he just hit me!”

Of course, this lady was able to do what I always wish I COULD do. She kept her eyes straight ahead, didn’t make eye contact, and just kept on walking.

Mrs. Frisch told me that she informed her kids at the beginning of the year that she doesn’t want to hear any complaining unless it involves one of the 3 B’s – Barfing, Bleeding, or Broken. Of course, she has to deal with Roy’al every day, so I think tattling is the least of her worries.

I’ve overheard Mrs. Bird on more than one occasion tell one of our kids to “Save it for tattle-time.” The trick here is that there never IS a tattle-time, but the kids don’t seem to catch on to this.

I’m considering creating a tattle patsy. This will be a stuffed animal, or a poster, or even just a stapler – something that I can send the kids to when they really, really have to tell on someone. After all, Lakeisha and others like her just want to speak the words into the air anyway, regardless of who is listening.

I just need to be sure that “Tattle Toby,” the stuffed elephant, has eyes that can roll.

Wish me luck on my date with Jill tonight! And please inform Tom Winter that our first date will NOT consist of “going up the hill to fetch a pail of water.”

He is so freakin’ hilarious.

Later,



Ima Tellonue



Date: Monday, November 30, 2009





To: Fred Bommerson



From: Jack Woodson



Subject: The Nutcracker – Sweet!



Hey man,