Learn Me Gooder (10 page)

Cheese follows in the footsteps of last year’s scare – Pepto Bismol and liquid ecstasy (codename: Pickles). Rumor has it that a new threat is on the horizon – a hybrid mixture of flour, methamphetamines, and oatmeal termed “Sesame Seed Bun.”

I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would even want to go near a drug called Cheese, but then I could never understand the appeal of edible cheddar-flavored product you can spray from a can – and look at the success of Cheez Whiz!

Apparently, Cheese is sold in tiny increments called “bumps” which are snorted, often with the ink straw from a ballpoint pen. Except in Plano, where they no doubt use rolled up hundred dollar bills. We were also told that some kids may hide a small amount in a Kleenex and then snort it while pretending to blow their nose. Often right at the front of the classroom! Since we were told that one of the symptoms of Cheese is euphoria, I’ve been advising everyone to be on guard against kids who get REALLY happy when they clear their sinuses.

Logically, we would discuss this subject with our own homerooms in our own classrooms, so that we could ensure that everyone was listening, and so we could answer any questions.

Instead, we were instructed to herd two entire grades at a time into the auditorium and do the talks there. So instead of 16-22 kids reasonably well behaved, we had roughly 250 kids closely spaced and much more interested in talking to kids they usually don’t see.

Miss Rooker talked to the kids while the teachers tried to maintain order. She started by talking about illegal drugs, and she asked the kids to name the ones they knew. Among the responses were cocaine, X, beer, wine, weed, and spinach. You KNOW they would never let Popeye play Major League Baseball or ride the Tour De France all juiced up on spinach.

A fourth grade girl stood up and announced that her grandfather has to blow into a straw before he can start his car in the morning, because of his drinking. This sparked a battle of one-upmanship, which concluded with another kid declaring, “Sometimes, my parents drink pot!”

At least nobody mentioned snorting vodka, injecting cigarettes, or smoking Michelob.

While patrolling the aisles, Mr. Redd passed by and whispered, “I hope she reads ‘The House That Crack Built.’” This is an actual book that one of our old counselors used to read to the kids all the time. Believe me, the story was as entertaining as the title.

I can pretty much already predict that the result of all of this will be a few kids going home and telling their parents that they can’t have macaroni and cheese anymore – because it will kill them.

And so, thanks to an ear check and Killer Cheese, we only covered perimeter today and did not get around to area. Maybe tomorrow we’ll try to figure out the square footage of a Schlitz.
Later,
Cheesed Lightnin’

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

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

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.