The Little Teacher That Could
When I started teaching high school I spent most of the first year putting out fires, and I mean that literally. I still have no idea how the emerging flames escaped my attention. I would simply stand there at the front of the room and eventually I’d smell smoke. Usually the boys (and it was always boys) would innocently ignite a piece of paper or perhaps burn part of a shoe, but sometimes things took a turn for the worst.
While I wasn’t terribly shocked when one of my sophomores set fire to his classmate’s leg hair, I was definitely shocked when I found out that the two had discussed it beforehand and the victim had actually consented to getting torched. After punishing the arsonist and making him cry I took the other kid out into the hall and explained that, in the future, if someone should ask for permission to light any part of his body on fire, he should say “No.”
This event was one of my first glimpses into the erratic world of teaching, and over the years the crazed teenage behaviors have become progressively easier to endure. However, I still find it difficult to balance these everyday incidents with the regular stresses of my personal life.
A prime example of this imbalance occurred three years ago when I made arrangements to fly to Texas for my cousin’s wedding and stupidly booked the flight a mere hour after school let out. My car was already somewhat on the fritz but I still considered it reliable because it was a Toyota and I knew the entire body would fall apart before the actual engine died.
So, parts of the car were falling off onto the ground and I was simply picking them up and putting them in the trunk. It also started making strange noises, but that problem was quickly remedied by increasing the volume on the radio. However, on the day in question my “check oil” light started flashing and I figured it would be best to take care of it because I had to get to the airport later that day.
On my way to school I quickly stopped at Albertson’s and bought some motor oil, but it was too dark in the parking lot to find the oil-keeping receptacle so I decided to wait until that afternoon. So, I rushed into school and hurriedly beat 97 other teachers away from the copy machine. Sweating and out of breath, I made my copies and rushed to my classroom just as the bell started ringing.
Needless to say it was a difficult day in the school yard. We were on assembly schedule so all the kids were rowdy and more psychotic than usual. I made it through first hour and had exactly 30 seconds to go to the bathroom between class periods. After high-tailing it down the hall with my pantyhose still around my knees, I stumbled in to find two of my students kicking around a gigantic stuffed sheep. (The stuffed sheep is mine. I named her Dolly and she lives in my “reading corner,” which is intended to be a safe, comforting place for kids to quietly read and grow in their love of literature.)
“Stop kicking Dolly!” I yelled, grabbing the sheep and tucking her under my arm. “Don’t you have any respect for other people’s things?” Then I heard a ruckus in the hallway and ran out to find two boys bludgeoning each other in the face. Blood squirted onto the wall and a crowd of spectators immediately swarmed to the scene. After soliciting the help of a male teacher we were able to break apart the combatants and I started screaming like a drill sergeant to try and disperse the crowd. Of course, they didn’t take me very seriously, probably because I was holding a stuffed sheep under my arm.
Finally we made it to the assembly. I believe the focus had something to do with homecoming, but our sound system was so poor that the announcer sounded like he was using the microphone to stir a bowl of gravel. Meanwhile, people would walk out onto the gym floor, spin around with various t-shirts and force each other to drink disgusting combinations of milk and shrimp juice in order to increase school spirit. No one in the audience paid any attention whatsoever.
Before the assembly began our principal got on the P.A. system and asked that all teachers sit in the bleachers with the students to serve as crowd control. Normally the teachers stood at the doorway to the gymnasium and that is exactly where I found them when I finally made it to the assembly. Being a first year teacher and very idealistic (i.e., dangerously stupid) I decided not to follow my colleagues’ poor example. “I don’t care what they’re doing,” I said to myself, “I’m going to sit with the students like our principal requested. I’m committed to the success of this school and the safety of these precious cherubs.”
I made my way to the middle row of the middle aisle of the freshman section. As soon as I sat down two stink bombs wafted up from the bottom rows and several spit-wads zoomed past my face. In response I stood up and stared, as though this would frighten the crowd into submission. The kids simply laughed. “How dare you try to assert your authority over the peasantry when we clearly outnumber you!” they wailed. “You cannot defeat the serfs while we are tilling our land and strengthening our resolve!”
Finally, the bell rang, the assembly was over, and all of the other teachers immediately fled. At that point I was caught up in a sea of adolescents who were pushing, climbing, and shoving each other to the ground. Squirming helplessly, I tried to get them to stop. “Stop pushing!” I screamed. “I can’t! Someone help me!” one girl yelled as she was tossed head first into an emerging mosh pit. I saw two cheerleaders and a trumpet player shoved to the ground and immediately trampled. The entire thing was beginning to resemble a Civil War battle scene.
My body was completely swept up in the tide and slammed into the middle of a doorway. Half my face was wedged against a metal beam but with my good eye I was able to spot another adult standing several miles in the distance and I screamed for help. He was large and intimidating and was able to stop the pushing by simply holding up his hand.
I made it back to the classroom sweating, scraped and bleeding. One of my freshmen (a huge, defensive lineman) came into the room weeping in a girlish frenzy. He was deeply concerned because a friend of his had allegedly been “strangled” by a science teacher and had run out of class. “I’ve got to leave, Miss Smith! I’ve got to find my friend! He ran away and will surely die a horrible death if I do not rescue him!” he cried.
I took him out into the hallway to calm him down. About five seconds later, I heard a crash inside the room. I opened the door to find Michael (one of the smaller kids in the class) lying on the floor underneath an upturned desk. The rest of the students stared at me quizzically as though I had just walked in on them in the bathroom. I temporarily disciplined the culprits, sent the lineman to counseling, and somehow managed to begin our lesson on Romeo and Juliet. Halfway through Act III a boy in the back row raised his hand and asked, “Excuse me, Miss Smith, but was I here yesterday?”
“Um, yes, you were, Andrew,” I said.
One of his classmates chimed in, “I saw him! He was asleep the whole time and you didn’t even notice!”
Clearly, I was making an impact.
I had to stay after school and lecture the kid who dropped a desk on Michael, so I was already running late and had to make my flight. As soon as I got to the car I noticed the bottle of unopened motor oil waiting on the passenger seat and remembered that my car might not even make it to DIA. I quickly popped the hood and began opening the oil, but where the heck was I supposed to put it? I mean, would it be too much to ask for the car makers to LABEL all those parts? There were a million tubes, a million places where it could go.
Well, I knew where the dipstick came out and also knew it was oftentimes associated with the oil. I decided to pour it in there but the spout was so dang tiny! I ran back inside and grabbed a funnel from one of the science labs, which allowed me to pour a good half an ounce of oil into the spout while spilling the rest all over the engine. That would have to do.
I began screeching to the airport at lightning speed until I hit a bottleneck at the railroad tracks. There was only one lane on this particular road and some kind of power surge had brought down the railway barriers. After about 20 minutes people began honking angrily and the pieces of wood and each car was taking dangerous turns scooting in and out of the barriers. I felt nervous driving into oncoming traffic but I had to make my flight and at this point I also had to pee pretty badly.
Finally, I arrived at the airport and began running into the building, all the while being poked repeatedly by a sharp object in my pocket (which turned out the be a plastic death star that I had taken away from a Freshman who constructed it out of an empty pop bottle). After making my way into the main concourse, I immediately got in the shortest security line only to be rejected by an angry little airport man who said this line was for “first class customers only.”
“But I’m going to miss my flight!” I begged.
“That’s not my problem,” he explained. “You should have read the totally enormous sign we posted at the front of the line, you sweating, bleeding, oily pig of a woman.”
With no time or energy to argue, I switched lines and started debating whether or not to take off my shoes when I went through security. I really didn’t have time to untie and tie them, but I also didn’t have time to get shoved into that little plastic box and strip searched. So, I removed my shoes, grabbed them out of the x-ray machine, and started running barefoot to my gate. As I whisked by I heard a little old lady begging for directions and she just happened to be going to the same concourse.
“I don’t have time for her,” I explained to God, internally.
“You will go straight to hell if you don’t help her,” He answered.
So I went back, grabbed the old lady and her stuff, and made it to my plane just as they started boarding. I plopped down in my seat almost in tears. Then, as the plane started to taxi toward the runway, Andrew’s voice echoed in my head. “Was I here yesterday?” he said faintly. I chuckled a little, and promptly remembered that I still had to pee.
And that, my friends, is a day in the life of a teacher.
While I wasn’t terribly shocked when one of my sophomores set fire to his classmate’s leg hair, I was definitely shocked when I found out that the two had discussed it beforehand and the victim had actually consented to getting torched. After punishing the arsonist and making him cry I took the other kid out into the hall and explained that, in the future, if someone should ask for permission to light any part of his body on fire, he should say “No.”
This event was one of my first glimpses into the erratic world of teaching, and over the years the crazed teenage behaviors have become progressively easier to endure. However, I still find it difficult to balance these everyday incidents with the regular stresses of my personal life.
A prime example of this imbalance occurred three years ago when I made arrangements to fly to Texas for my cousin’s wedding and stupidly booked the flight a mere hour after school let out. My car was already somewhat on the fritz but I still considered it reliable because it was a Toyota and I knew the entire body would fall apart before the actual engine died.
So, parts of the car were falling off onto the ground and I was simply picking them up and putting them in the trunk. It also started making strange noises, but that problem was quickly remedied by increasing the volume on the radio. However, on the day in question my “check oil” light started flashing and I figured it would be best to take care of it because I had to get to the airport later that day.
On my way to school I quickly stopped at Albertson’s and bought some motor oil, but it was too dark in the parking lot to find the oil-keeping receptacle so I decided to wait until that afternoon. So, I rushed into school and hurriedly beat 97 other teachers away from the copy machine. Sweating and out of breath, I made my copies and rushed to my classroom just as the bell started ringing.
Needless to say it was a difficult day in the school yard. We were on assembly schedule so all the kids were rowdy and more psychotic than usual. I made it through first hour and had exactly 30 seconds to go to the bathroom between class periods. After high-tailing it down the hall with my pantyhose still around my knees, I stumbled in to find two of my students kicking around a gigantic stuffed sheep. (The stuffed sheep is mine. I named her Dolly and she lives in my “reading corner,” which is intended to be a safe, comforting place for kids to quietly read and grow in their love of literature.)
“Stop kicking Dolly!” I yelled, grabbing the sheep and tucking her under my arm. “Don’t you have any respect for other people’s things?” Then I heard a ruckus in the hallway and ran out to find two boys bludgeoning each other in the face. Blood squirted onto the wall and a crowd of spectators immediately swarmed to the scene. After soliciting the help of a male teacher we were able to break apart the combatants and I started screaming like a drill sergeant to try and disperse the crowd. Of course, they didn’t take me very seriously, probably because I was holding a stuffed sheep under my arm.
Finally we made it to the assembly. I believe the focus had something to do with homecoming, but our sound system was so poor that the announcer sounded like he was using the microphone to stir a bowl of gravel. Meanwhile, people would walk out onto the gym floor, spin around with various t-shirts and force each other to drink disgusting combinations of milk and shrimp juice in order to increase school spirit. No one in the audience paid any attention whatsoever.
Before the assembly began our principal got on the P.A. system and asked that all teachers sit in the bleachers with the students to serve as crowd control. Normally the teachers stood at the doorway to the gymnasium and that is exactly where I found them when I finally made it to the assembly. Being a first year teacher and very idealistic (i.e., dangerously stupid) I decided not to follow my colleagues’ poor example. “I don’t care what they’re doing,” I said to myself, “I’m going to sit with the students like our principal requested. I’m committed to the success of this school and the safety of these precious cherubs.”
I made my way to the middle row of the middle aisle of the freshman section. As soon as I sat down two stink bombs wafted up from the bottom rows and several spit-wads zoomed past my face. In response I stood up and stared, as though this would frighten the crowd into submission. The kids simply laughed. “How dare you try to assert your authority over the peasantry when we clearly outnumber you!” they wailed. “You cannot defeat the serfs while we are tilling our land and strengthening our resolve!”
Finally, the bell rang, the assembly was over, and all of the other teachers immediately fled. At that point I was caught up in a sea of adolescents who were pushing, climbing, and shoving each other to the ground. Squirming helplessly, I tried to get them to stop. “Stop pushing!” I screamed. “I can’t! Someone help me!” one girl yelled as she was tossed head first into an emerging mosh pit. I saw two cheerleaders and a trumpet player shoved to the ground and immediately trampled. The entire thing was beginning to resemble a Civil War battle scene.
My body was completely swept up in the tide and slammed into the middle of a doorway. Half my face was wedged against a metal beam but with my good eye I was able to spot another adult standing several miles in the distance and I screamed for help. He was large and intimidating and was able to stop the pushing by simply holding up his hand.
I made it back to the classroom sweating, scraped and bleeding. One of my freshmen (a huge, defensive lineman) came into the room weeping in a girlish frenzy. He was deeply concerned because a friend of his had allegedly been “strangled” by a science teacher and had run out of class. “I’ve got to leave, Miss Smith! I’ve got to find my friend! He ran away and will surely die a horrible death if I do not rescue him!” he cried.
I took him out into the hallway to calm him down. About five seconds later, I heard a crash inside the room. I opened the door to find Michael (one of the smaller kids in the class) lying on the floor underneath an upturned desk. The rest of the students stared at me quizzically as though I had just walked in on them in the bathroom. I temporarily disciplined the culprits, sent the lineman to counseling, and somehow managed to begin our lesson on Romeo and Juliet. Halfway through Act III a boy in the back row raised his hand and asked, “Excuse me, Miss Smith, but was I here yesterday?”
“Um, yes, you were, Andrew,” I said.
One of his classmates chimed in, “I saw him! He was asleep the whole time and you didn’t even notice!”
Clearly, I was making an impact.
I had to stay after school and lecture the kid who dropped a desk on Michael, so I was already running late and had to make my flight. As soon as I got to the car I noticed the bottle of unopened motor oil waiting on the passenger seat and remembered that my car might not even make it to DIA. I quickly popped the hood and began opening the oil, but where the heck was I supposed to put it? I mean, would it be too much to ask for the car makers to LABEL all those parts? There were a million tubes, a million places where it could go.
Well, I knew where the dipstick came out and also knew it was oftentimes associated with the oil. I decided to pour it in there but the spout was so dang tiny! I ran back inside and grabbed a funnel from one of the science labs, which allowed me to pour a good half an ounce of oil into the spout while spilling the rest all over the engine. That would have to do.
I began screeching to the airport at lightning speed until I hit a bottleneck at the railroad tracks. There was only one lane on this particular road and some kind of power surge had brought down the railway barriers. After about 20 minutes people began honking angrily and the pieces of wood and each car was taking dangerous turns scooting in and out of the barriers. I felt nervous driving into oncoming traffic but I had to make my flight and at this point I also had to pee pretty badly.
Finally, I arrived at the airport and began running into the building, all the while being poked repeatedly by a sharp object in my pocket (which turned out the be a plastic death star that I had taken away from a Freshman who constructed it out of an empty pop bottle). After making my way into the main concourse, I immediately got in the shortest security line only to be rejected by an angry little airport man who said this line was for “first class customers only.”
“But I’m going to miss my flight!” I begged.
“That’s not my problem,” he explained. “You should have read the totally enormous sign we posted at the front of the line, you sweating, bleeding, oily pig of a woman.”
With no time or energy to argue, I switched lines and started debating whether or not to take off my shoes when I went through security. I really didn’t have time to untie and tie them, but I also didn’t have time to get shoved into that little plastic box and strip searched. So, I removed my shoes, grabbed them out of the x-ray machine, and started running barefoot to my gate. As I whisked by I heard a little old lady begging for directions and she just happened to be going to the same concourse.
“I don’t have time for her,” I explained to God, internally.
“You will go straight to hell if you don’t help her,” He answered.
So I went back, grabbed the old lady and her stuff, and made it to my plane just as they started boarding. I plopped down in my seat almost in tears. Then, as the plane started to taxi toward the runway, Andrew’s voice echoed in my head. “Was I here yesterday?” he said faintly. I chuckled a little, and promptly remembered that I still had to pee.
And that, my friends, is a day in the life of a teacher.
posted by Alice | 9:44 PM
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