I can feel the lines in my once youthful face deepen as I repeat yet again something about the protagonist or point of view or whatever the hell I’m supposed to be teaching them that day which sounds boring and pointless even to myself.
Some kids are smart and they’ll ask, “When will we need to know this?”
“Friday, for the test,” I answer, all matter-of-fact and like a smart aleck because we both know that’s not what they’re talking about.
“I know, I mean after the test,” they persist.
“Don’t worry about that.”
What everybody knows is that nobody needs to know this stuff, but we have to go through the motions because they have to go to school and I have to pay my mortgage, so here we are.
Sometimes, to help pass the time, I draw a little thermometer, label each class period, and then shade it in with each passing hour, like money for a Junior League fundraiser. Pie charts can also be pressed into service as time measuring tools when I feel like being spontaneous. This is a method I developed during high school, perfected during college, and still continue to use quite frequently today. I find them particularly useful during meetings. Grade-level meetings, department meetings, faculty meetings, counselor meetings, parent meetings…
Finding myself in particularly desperate circumstances, I could not hide my delight when an office assistant walked into my class bearing a message. It would make a lot more sense if someone from the office just called us on our classroom phones, but in an effort to minimize any distractions during valuable instructional time, a trustworthy child was routinely sent up to various classrooms to deliver a message from the mother ship. Constantly surrounded by children, I for one would have greatly benefited from any additional adult interaction a phone call might bring- no matter how brief- but alas, this is yet another administrative action that has resulted without the opinion or influence of myself.
While this particular summons was nothing more but a notice from the attendance office that one of my student’s parents were here to pick her up. I took this opportunity to bring some much-needed entertainment to an otherwise lifeless Tuesday afternoon.
The student in question was one Raven Atkinson, complete with the glossy black hair that the name would imply. A quiet, well-meaning little girl who had never given anyone any trouble in her entire eleven and a half years, she was sitting in the back of the class diligently working on whatever useless assignment I had come up with minutes before the commencement of classes and would no doubt simply throw away upon it’s completion as I had already acquired all the grades I needed for the six-weeks and I had no intention of grading any more than absolutely necessary.
The class is silent, the result of some much needed training implemented at the beginning of the year in which I explained in no uncertain terms that I would prefer that children speak only when spoken to, particularly when there is 30 of them in close proximity to my person. Despite the serenity, I say rather loudly to attract the attention of the other students, “Raven, you need to go to the VPO office.” This is a ridiculously redundant reference to the Vice Principal’s Office. It would make more sense to simply say the “VPO” or “VP office,” but I am neither one to begin nor buck the ways of this world.
Several of my students who generally do not bother to tune-in to what I am saying, whether that be about children’s literature or that a small fire is burning in the classroom, wake from their stupor as they try to hone in on this uncharacteristically interesting development in reading class. Raven however simply nods obediently and starts to neatly shuffle her papers and replace her pencil in her neatly organized pencil pouch to prepare for her departure.
Perturbed by this calm and unexciting response, I realize that perhaps I need to explain the situation in a little more detail. This little cherub probably doesn’t even know what the VPO office is. This is not code for high fives and stickers, it means you got written up, which means you’re going down. There’s paper work, and administration monitoring security cameras, and teachers writing official statements about your bad behavior and phone calls home and lunch detention and after-school detention and in-school suspension and out-of-school suspension and maybe even alternative school. It is the end of your miserable middle school career that has only just begun!
I lean in closer, “You’re in a lot of trouble.”
Her eyes flash fear, but she could hardly be described as panicked. The kid is clearly thinking there has been some kind of misunderstanding that will be quickly ironed out.
I persist in a harsh whisper, “I heard about what you did last period. You should probably go ahead and clean out your locker. Your parents are here to pick you up. You can’t go to school here anymore.”
A look of pure horror washes across her innocent little face and I feel the tiniest twinge of guilt for causing this unnecessary stress for no reason other than my own entertainment. A flurry of excited whispering strikes up across the room.
“But I didn’t do nothing last period, Miss!” Raven’s eyes are wide, her hands extended pleadingly to me. I feel like Caesar as a gladiator begs for his life in the arena. I have to struggle to keep from laughing and I am tempted to keep up the charade but I have learned from experience that some kids just can’t tolerate being teased for very long, particularly if it is from an authoritative figure that they blindly trust. Tears are inevitable if pushed too far. Drawing from my vast personal experience I glumly realize that we have arrived all too quickly at the threshold.
“I know, I know, calm down. I was just joking with you. They need you at the attendance office. You were probably skipping or something.”
Raven snatches the pass out of my hand- much too roughly- and stalks out of the room, crashing the door behind her. A few of the National Honor Society types give me disapproving looks, clearly annoyed by the unnecessary disturbance.
I walk dolefully back to my desk and sigh. I still have 57 more minutes until school gets out.
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