Smugness should never be allowed to enter the psyche of a teacher. It is an emotion antithetical to the vocation of educator. It is borrowing trouble. It is placing a curse on yourself. It is sticking pins into the proverbial voodoo doll.
It is such a far, far distance to fall when everything stops spinning on its axis.
You know where I am heading…
Fridays are wonderful because it is Jeans Day. What could be better than sliding into my favorite jeans, comfy moccasins, and a Vikings Jersey? I’m asking… what could be better?
Fridays are awful because they are the last day of the school week. At face value, that should be a good thing, right? And it is, but I usually find myself trying to stop the swift slide of ending the week in a whirlwind of last minute business. There is the dreaded Friday letter to send home. And truthfully, that puppy doesn’t usually get written until, well, Friday.
Today was different. Today I awoke with my letter written and ready to print. I had already started lesson planning for next week, I had my art project ready to whip out in the afternoon. Holy cow, did this mean I was GETTING THE HANG OF TEACHING??? No, no, I cannot make that leap just yet. As I was shoving corrected homework into cubbies (another frantic last minute chore, generally), the Smugness Demon jumped on to my shoulder and started to tickle my ear. I was even toying with the unthinkable idea of running up to the Teacher Workroom to grab a quick cup of coffee and munch on whatever high calorie baked goodie was featured today.
Then I heard my name, and the tone spoke volumes. Ooops. I instinctively knew that things were going to go downhill quickly. The kindergarten teacher was walking towards me with one of my female students beside her, and my poor girlie was a mask of contorted features and tear-stained face. Ohmygoodness… what HAPPENED?! Rollover accident? Death of a beloved pet? Mugged by roving gangs on Main Street?
“Carl puked on me on the bus!” She blurted out in horror. “He got it everywhere!” Unadulterated outrage. My eyes did a sweep of her person. I had to hand it to Carl. He had missed very little of my young Joan of Arc. Jeans, backpack, shoes were all coated with Captain Crunch.
Joan was inconsolable. I fetched her stay-at-school stash of spare clothes and sent her into the bathroom to change, the tears and sobs still wracking her small frame. She was sure she would never recover from this unspeakable horror. When we got her into clean things and back into the classroom, I tried to provide some perspective and help her jump to the fifth stage of the Kubler-Ross model of grieving - Acceptance, but she stubbornly insisted on planting herself in Stage Two - Anger. Shoving a stuffed animal into her shaking hands, I headed upstairs to the laundry room to put her things into the washing machine.
The school HazMat team beat me to it. Hazardous Materials team consisting of the lone male elementary teacher standing over the sink trying to remove barf to the best of his This-Is-So-Not-In-My-Contract ability. The ironic, amusing part of that mental picture is, this man was successful in the engineering field for many years before deciding to devote his energies to educating the young. He is borderline genius, I think. I student taught under him, and trust me, he is one smart cookie (in keeping with the cookie theme of this post), and I ‘m sure the school board is too smart to ever toss him. He and I have spent hours discussing “what if” the state legislature ever approved charter schools. He thinks he could do it better and smarter than the current educational system does. I think he could too. I hope he hires me.
I told Einstein that I would throw my desecrated duds in the wash when he was done, then headed back downstairs. My students had all arrived by now and were ooohing and ahhing over our most recent class pet frog (the frog infestation continues), captured by me in our classroom just before The Crisis of the Century. I made a mental note to have the kids come up with a name for it later.
Joan was still sobbing and clutching the stuffed dog like it was literally keeping her alive. I patted her distraught head and gathered my chicks for morning routine. Joan couldn’t possibly participate, she was sure. I gave her a pass… for the moment.
I passed the stack of new writing curriculum that had been dropped in my arms just minutes before. Weighing roughly the same weight as a four-year-old, I was to look it over and implement it ASAP. Sigh… there goes the weekend.
Snack is now underway, pledge is a memory, library books deposited in the proper receptacle, homework turned in, it was time to get out the newspapers for our daily sight word search. I challenged my first graders to find a name for the new pet frog from the pages of the Tribune. Challenge accepted.
Joan is still crying, but has agreed to get a highlighter and participate. I hear pathetic little hiccups coming from her spot on the floor at various intervals. The squall is subsiding. I had pulled her onto my lap a few minutes before to try once again to calm her and she had wailed aloud, “I’m just so grossed out!” I get it, dearie. I do. I’d be a bit nauseated myself. I harkened back to the day a few weeks before when this same child had come in from recess clutching her stomach and complaining about being sick. She gives me the giggles when she speaks to me because if you wrote down verbatim what she said, there would be no punctuation whatsoever. No periods or commas or breaks of any sort just talking and talking until she runs out of breath it is really so very funny I love this child she melts my heart and Mrs. Dahl you know WHAT??! (big inhale before the next volley of words…)
This is how she speaks.
As she complained that day of her tummy feeling sick, she told me how she had attempted to make herself feel better. She said, “I was feeling sicker and sicker outside so I got on the Puke Machine” (a legendary piece of playground equipment. Every student who has ever attended here has a story about The Puke Machine). “Did it help?” I asked with arched eyebrow. “NO!” was her amazed reply. I guess she figured she would fight fire with fire.
I smiled as I recalled the memory.
Newspaper time was winding down and I called for pet frog name nominations. Ideas were thrown out and bandied about. “Mid Dakota Clinic” was discussed and rejected. “Netbooking” didn’t receive much enthusiasm. The winning name? (Drum roll, please, as the game show music swells and crescendos….)
Our pet frog has been christened, Chicken On Sale. Yes, really.
Well, you know what they say….
Tastes like chicken…
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