Adventures of a First Year Teacher

Just discovered a forgotten journal I was keeping for the first few days of teaching last year. Here are selections from my entry beginning with the second day of my first year of teaching.

The Good:
Today I had my first crackdown, discipline-wise, and I handled it tremendously well, if I do say so myself. I handed out this assignment to the kids and told them not to worry about finishing it tonight; it wasn’t homework, that we’d finish it in class tomorrow, but that they should use their time today wisely. The kid—who we’ll call Andrew because that is his name—packed up early. I told him to sit back down and finish working. He said he’d do it tonight. I said, well then why am I giving you time tomorrow? He said nothing. I said sit down and finish it. We had a stare down. The thing is, he was standing up first and was much taller than I was, but as I stared him down, he gradually sank into the chair until I was taller (never underestimate the importance of body language, as Ursula would tell me, if I were a mermaid named Ariel). But even though he did that, I could tell he wasn’t going to back down. So I stared at him for a few more seconds and then said, “Okay, it’s homework. For everyone.” He immediately said, “No, I’ll do it. Look I’m getting it out.” But I completely ignored him and turned around to a bunch of girls digging through my books and said, “Did you hear that girls? The assignment’s homework. If anyone doesn’t have it done tomorrow at the beginning of class, it’s late.” And since I have a really strict late policy, I think it will all be finished. I heard one of the kid’s say, “Way to go, Andrew,” but I didn’t even look at him for the next minute or so until the bell rang. No skin off my back. It was great!! I really don’t think I’ll have another problem like that one with him again. Knock on wood…

It’s so weird to have my own classroom. To know I can do anything type of curriculum I want. I don’t have to answer to anyone (am having a bit of a problem remembering I don’t have to do all of the previous teacher's curriculum, especially all the stuff with careers). I’m the teacher. I can do whatever I want. THERE’S SO MUCH FREEDOM!!! I LOVE IT!!!

Good day all around. Knew everybody’s name as they walked out of my classroom. Hopefully at least half of them will carry over. WOB came in during sixth hour when the kids had their dictionaries open and were working-slash-quizzing me over their names. Very good moment for him to observe meJ Am excited to get back there tomorrow morning and get to work again.

The Bad:
I’m having lots of fun, but am physically exhausted at the end of every day. I fall into bed and am asleep in minutes. Plus, I have no life and I’m broke. I have $1.90 in my checking account and don’t get paid for eight more days. Hmm.

The Inbetween:
Me, today in school sixth period: In the scene of Romeo & Juliet you read last night as homework, can anyone tell me what the nurse and Lady Capulet are talking about.

[Several hands go up]

Me: Emily?

Emily: They’re reminiscing about Juliet’s childhood

Me: Exactly! Nice work. What else? Andrew?

Andrew: Is there a war going on in Iraq?

Me:

Amanda: Andrew! Shut up!!

That kid is unlike any other student I’ve ever met in my life. Despite his inability to focus on ANYTHING at hand, I do really like him. He’s fun…although I wish he’d quit flirting with me. It’s especially embarrassing when kids from other classes comment on it.

Ha! How hilarious!! I'm happy to say that the flirting did stop once I no longer had him in class. I am currently laughing to myself about how excited I was to get back to work the next day. I am now counting down the days until summer vacation (for the record, it's 21--four full weeks of classes plus one day for the teachers).

Corsage Catastrophe

So today is the day of my brother's prom and I decide to go with my mom to pick up the corsage for his date. We're running behind after spending an hour at the library looking for books on endangered species for my mother's sixth graders to research and we still need to go to Wal-Mart to get my dad some garden seed plant thing so he won't accuse us of blowing him off and to get me insulin so I won't die. I tell my mom I'll run in to Hy-Vee and pick up the corsage to save us the time of parking, etc. so we can get a move on and brother won't be late.

Only I go into Hy-Vee and tell them my name and there's no flower. They look in the refridgerator where they keep all their flowers and there's nothing back there. "It's lime green," I say helpfully, in case they're retarded and can't read their writing. "There are three lime green sweetheart roses with white foliage." They look blankly around. Clearly, it's not there.

We check out the sheet with the order, and in the column that reads "Done" there is no checkmark. The fucking flower never got made and he has to leave in forty minutes to pick his date up on time.

"No problem," the older woman with stupid blonde hair in a stupid cut says. "I'll do yours next." Then, as I stand there and watch, another woman comes up to the counter. She's clearly A Mom as she's got at least two decades on me, maybe more. Hers isn't made either. I throw her a sympathetic look until I hear Stupid Blonde say, "No problem. I'll do yours next." I immediately take back my sympathetic look as I worry about my place in line. Then Stupid Blonde says, "Michelle, refund this woman her money." I look to see who she's talking about and it's The Mom--NOT ME. Stupid Blonde has just become Stupid Blonde Bitch and I now hate her.

I wait patiently for five minutes while they tell The Mom it will be ten minutes for her order and probably twenty for mine. Then I run to the parking lot and explain the situation to my mother. We agree she will go to Wal-Mart and pretend to be me picking up my insulin and come back and pick me up.

Then I call Brother. He's rather apologetic while I seethingly explain the situation through clenched teeth--"I'm experiencing agism RIGHT HERE--discrimination right in the middle of the florist section of the local Hy-Vee! If I were a MAN--"

"That doesn't fit in with the ageism theory."

"Oh. Right. Thanks. If I were a MIDDLE-AGED MOTHER, this would NEVER happen."

He is appropriately sympathetic because he's grateful: 1) I'm picking up his corsage and it has now been 25 minutes since I walked in, and 2) he's driving my car to pick up his date.

We hang up and I watch the clock. Thirty minutes tick by and I call my mom and tell her to take her time--the corsage was supposed to be ready ten minutes ago and she's busy making an orange corsage and sticking baby's breath into some bouquet at the same time while I stand trying to be tall enough to glare at her over the top of the discount roses.

I decide to run and get pop for work as I'm pretty sure that my boss has been stealing mine again. Then I remember that I'm out of cereal and if I don't have any of that, I will definitely starve. All of my pants have been a little tight lately, so that may not be a bad thing, but I buy the cereal anyway. Then I go stand in front of the florist again.

There are now three employees working on one bouquet of flowers, one working at the cash register, and zero working on my corsage. I pretend my phone rings and say loudly into, "Well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm still at Hy-Vee and they haven't even STARTED on your corsage yet. You'll just have to call Cathy and tell her you'll be late for your PROM." I glare some more at Stupid Blonde Bitch, who has the decency to drop the carnation she'd been busy shoving into a vase and pick up some white sweetheart roses. "I'll call you when I leave," I say, continuing my fake conversation into the cell phone, "if I ever DO leave."

I see Stupid Blonde Bitch whispering to the woman named Michelle who, I notice on her name tag, has worked here eight years and yet can't run a fucking cash register, or really do ANYTHING except stand around apologizing to people for not having their orders finished.

Michelle calls me over and refunds my money (really my mother's money, $27, thank you very much) and when I go back to standing in front of Stupid Blonde Bitch, she says, "I apologize for the wait. I don't know what happened; everything got all messed up." I think in my head, don't EVEN try to be friends with me now, Bitch!

The thing is, I worked in a grocery store for four years and I know how customers blame you for things that are not your fault. It was clearly NOT her fault that mine wasn't made--the night staff had prepared next weekend's corsages instead of this weekend's corsages--but it IS her fault that she ignored me, made someone else's corsage in front of my face even when I was clearly the first customer in line, refunded that woman's money but NOT mine until she'd made me wait 40 more minutes, and worked on other people's orders instead of mine while ignoring me some more. I was beyond the point of pretending to be courteous.

So I say, "I just wish I'd known when she said it would take 20 minutes, she really meant an hour." Then I stomp away and pull out my cell phone to check in with my mother again.

Ten minutes later, she FINALLY finishes the corsage (seriously, why do they have four people working back there when only one of them can actually do anything???) and begins working on the boutinierre.

"Wait a minute," I say, "we didn't order a boutinierre."

She ignores me (shocking!) and shows me a picture of a purple caterlilly. "We don't have these in stock," she says.

I stare at her blankly, then realizes she expects an answer. "Oh. Well, we didn't order that, so it's okay."

She and Michelle look at my order form. Then they look back at the picture. "But we don't have that," Stupid Blonde Bitch repeats.

"Well," I repeat, "we didn't order that, so it's okay. We ordered a lime green wrist corsage with three sweetheart roses, baby breath, and white leaves."

"But this is a purple caterlilly," she tells me.

I think, don't care! but answer, "Not mine."

Finally, they realize that they mixed up the order (ya think? I think) and continue making the boutinierre despite my repeated, "We only ordered a corsage!"s. They hand over the corsage and boutinierres and I glance at the clock as I leave. I have spent a full sixty minutes waiting for a stupid corsage that was supposed to have been done six hours ago.

As I'm leaving, Stupid Blonde Bitch smiles and says gaily, "Thank you. Come again!" and I want her dead.

Happy birthday ... to me.

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 24.

It's incredible to me. Even as I look at the number, I can't believe it. When my students asked me how old I was and I replied, "Twenty-four," some of the girls responded, "I didn't know you were that young," which prompted the boys to joke, "Any day now you'll be over the hill." I replied, "I know! It's getting to the point where I can say, 'Twenty years ago...' and actually remember what happened!"

Which got me thinking.

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. The weather was beautiful and since it's Easter weekend, I have several days off from school now. I got loads of wonderful presents from my fam, including a new DVD/VCR combo and several books and movies I'd been coveting. My mim and I went grocery shopping for Easter dinner on Sunday and it was nice to spend time with her, I'm currently rereading one of my all-time favorite books (Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation) which is one of those books that makes me feel happy just looking at it, and my dog was behaving herself for a change. All in all, it was perfect.

And even so, when I went to bed, I turned out my light earlier than I usually would so I could float in the darkness and let my age and memories and feelings wash over me. I had a perfectly lovely day, and although it's not as traumatic as my last birthday was, I felt awash with feelings of nostalgia and change, all swirled into one indefinable emotion. I like to be able to identify my emotions, so it's particularly puzzling when I'm unable to. I guess it's just as my mother told me last year, "Birthdays are emotional." What I'm discovering more and more is that--they are.

They signify age and mortality, and yet, inevitably, I reflect back on previous years and feel youthful as well. They signify achievement--look at all I've done--and unconquered dreams--here's what I still want to do. They make me reflective and dreamy and hopeful and inspired and, well, emotional. And even though I'm one big ball of confusion, I still can't help but think: ooh, I can't wait until next April 14th!

It's reassuring that as I approach mid-twenties, part of me set up camp along time ago in the single digits.

Discussions in Class

Overheard conversations while watching the movie Cannery Row with 11 senior boys suffering from senioritis.

After seeing Nick Nolte, complete with mustache, Jacob (complete with a mustache himself) shouts out: "Hey! That's me!" The screen flashes to an ugly looking octupus. Jacob cries: "And that's Rhett!" The screen flashes to a scantily clad woman: "And that's Lucas. Wow! Look at the legs on Luke!"

After Nick Nolte swears, the class unanimously gasps in mock shock.
Me: "Do we need to take out our mature caps and secure them tightly to our heads."
(Various students mumbling to each other): "Our what?"... "I've lost mine"... "Lost it? You never had it!" ... "What the hell's a mature cap? Is that like a tampon?"