Surprisingly, I awoke refreshed and upbeat on Monday, and that almost never happens. In the morning, I took the time to brew some fresh coffee before I left for work, and I even managed to pack my lunch: tuna with a salad, apple, and a small bag of organic popcorn. I’d been making a conscious effort to eat healthier when I could because I didn’t want all my hours at CrossFit to go to waste.
The day moved quickly as I immersed myself in work, and the next two days were much the same. The students I had this year seemed genuinely nice. They asked intelligent questions, offered to help put the laptops away properly, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the class. They made it a pleasure to come to work each day. But I hoped I hadn’t jumped the gun on my assessment of them. It was still only September. In years past, the beginning of the year had only been a honeymoon phase. Then October came. And with it, spawns of Satan. But I had high hopes for this year’s kids.
Unfortunately Trish wasn’t faring so well in her classes. As her mentor, I had the responsibility of speaking informally with her on a regular basis to answer any questions she may have and to give her advice. But Wednesday afternoon was the first formal meeting of the year, when the mentors and mentees from all of the district’s schools got together to meet with the administration about any issues they were experiencing. The topic of the lesson was classroom management. Thankfully, though the meetings were monthly for the new teachers, mentors only had to attend once in September and once in May.
And two times was plenty. Though new teachers—who were just getting acclimated to facilitating a classroom of students on their own—could benefit from such instruction, classroom management was not a topic that I felt I needed to work on. I never had a problem in that area, and after years of teaching, I didn’t think I would start now.
Trish, on the other hand, was a complete disaster. Instead of telling me privately about the behavior issues she’d been having in class, she apparently thought that a group setting would be the most appropriate place to share her struggles. After Mr. Coulson, the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, played a video of a well-run classroom in California, Trish’s hand shot up. As she spoke, tears threatened to fall from her eyes. “My class doesn’t look like that,” she said.
“Well, what does it look like, Trish? Please, share with the group.”
No, Trish. Please don’t share with the group. I felt my eyes grow wide with embarrassment as I anticipated what she might say.
“I found out this morning that the kids who sit against the wall in my fifth period class have slowly been chipping away at the drywall behind my poster of Edgar Allan Poe,” she blurted out. “They were all laughing today, and I saw them crowding around one spot, so I knew something was going on. When I managed to get them out of the way, I saw that they’d dug a hole through the wall. You can see through the other side into the stairwell.”
Even Mr. Coulson didn’t know how to respond to that. And he had a comment for everything. Before she had spoken, there’d been no doubt in my mind that whatever Trish was about to say would be awful, but I had no idea that her kids had been reenacting The fucking Shawshank Redemption. I briefly wondered why I hadn’t seen Tim Robbins emerge from her classroom with pieces of drywall in the cuffs of his pants.
Over the course of the next few hours, we managed to talk Trish down from her proverbial ledge. Though at least now if she got the urge to “jump,” she could just climb through the hole in her wall and throw herself down the stairs. I had to admit, the image made me laugh.
***
Somehow, even after the meeting, I still felt energetic enough to go to CrossFit before heading home. By the time I walked in the door, it was already after 8:15. I jumped when I heard Amanda scream. Not so much because of all of the yelling. I was used to her crazy behavior. I jumped because I hadn’t expected her to be home. She almost always got home after me.
I heard running water, mixed with Amanda’s cursing, coming from the bathroom. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Ouch! Jesus Christ!”
“Amanda, are you okay?” I knocked on the door, unsure of what could elicit such urgent screams.
“Uh, yeah. I just . . ." She sighed deeply before continuing. "I sprayed myself in the eye with sex toy cleaner.” She opened the door and thrust the bottle my way. “Can you read this? Should I call poison control or something?”
“You’re ridiculous. Just keep splashing water on your eyes. It’ll come out. The stuff is made to go on things you put in your body. It’s not poisonous.” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. This kind of stuff always happened to Amanda. “How did you do that anyway?”
As she flicked on the light and held up the vibrator she’d been clenching in her hand, I instantly became sorry I’d asked. “I was cleaning this in the dark. I couldn’t see which way the bottle was gonna spray. I just started pumping, and it sprayed in my eyes.” She pulled a hand towel off the rack and dabbed her face dry. “I didn’t even get to clean this yet,” she said as she ran the vibrator under the water and sprayed the cleaner cautiously toward it.