The baby is crying on the monitor. I should figure out why she is sad. I should be packing for a trip up to Pennsylvania for the funeral for Brad’s grandmother– this magical magnetic force of a woman I haven’t even begun to say goodbye to.
I should be preparing for an inevitable Corona Quarantine. I have done no shopping. No stockpiling of goods. I don’t know when that would’ve occurred when every day I feel like I’m shot out of a cannon- launched into a day that is nonstop until I crash into bed and implode with exhaustion. How long will the box of hotel hand soaps I got from the Jennings family holiday white elephant exchange two years ago last us if we’re washing our hands for two “Happy Birthdays” 70 times a day? I have no clue. I can’t do the math on how unprepared we are. I can’t even do the math on how many pairs of pants I should put in my suitcase.
All I day long my mantra has been “I am so tired.”
“I am so tired.”
“I am so tired.”
And I’d rally and face the next thing.
I should go to bed. But I had a win today. And in the midst of this vortex of bad news and worry- I need to share about it. Because. Just because.
So here goes.
I wasn’t looking forward to third period today.
For some background, It’s a seventh grade U.S. History class with just three boys in it. Because I can hear you asking, “why does it take two grown adults to teach three measly seventh graders U.S. History?” let me reassure you that these particular friends benefit from smaller class sizes and lots of extra support. And that sometimes they arrive in our room in a cloud of Axe and Old Spice with the force of 300 hormonal teenagers.
The teacher I support was going to be out of the classroom for a department planning day and because of persistent shortages in the county, there was no substitute to work with. That on its own might not have been awful. I probably could’ve managed the three on my own- though I’m not sure how much history actually would’ve been learned.
I was mostly concerned about weathering the fallout from a mooning incident the previous class. And by mooning, I mean that one of my students in a moment of particularly inspired idiocy jumped up from his seat, turned around and pulled his pants downward for what was probably a fraction of a second but felt like an eternity.
When I say mooning incident, I don’t mean, like, a full moon incident. It was more of a waning crescent than a waning gibbous if you catch my drift. Not that it matters. Because a moon is a moon. And it is never appropriate in school. And never appropriate to inflict on a mild-mannered instructional assistant who just wanted to help a student or three learn a little bit about Prohibition (And on behalf of all middle school teachers out there can we just say thank god that didn’t last in our country).
Immediately after the mooning, the student had an attack of conscience (or was it consequence?) and started fretting over whether I would write him up. Now, I’m not real heavy-handed with the referral writing in my classes (I have my reasons) but in this instance… I really had no choice. I feel like it should go without saying that you shouldn’t moon a teacher, right? Sometimes based on where I work, I feel as if I’ve lost my compass on what qualifies as normal behavior.
Anyway, I wrote the referral. And the student had to deal with some consequences.
So he wasn’t in class today. His buddy was though. A fellow victim of the mooning, I should add. And from the moment he walked in the door I knew he was salty. He wouldn’t look at me or talk to me. He told the teacher who was in to take attendance and get him started on the lesson that he would not work with me.
He sat on the air conditioner, kicking his heels against the side.
I set a timer and told him I’d give him a few minutes for a break, but that we had some work we needed to get through. He told me he wasn’t going to work with me. So I just sat down. And waited. (Our third student was absent that day, so it was just the two of us).
He finally started talking to me. Asking about why I got his friend in trouble. He didn’t understand why I had to write him up, why I couldn’t just have given him a warning.
I bit my tongue. Counted to three. Then I calmly told the student that what his friend had done was so inappropriate that it wasn’t something I could just give a warning about. That I rarely wrote students up, that I was generally flexible, but that this time he’d crossed a boundary. That he was disrespectful and inappropriate. I had to write the referral.
The student continued to sulk on the air conditioner, grumbling about how he wasn’t going to do work.
At one point he walked out of the room.
I went to the hallway and told him he needed to come back in the class. He told me no. I told him if he couldn’t come back in the class I’d have to call an administrator. He wouldn’t come in. I reminded him again that I’d need to call the office. He wouldn’t come in.
So I called the office.
As I was hanging up the phone he started complaining about how now he was going to get in trouble. And how I shouldn’t have called the office because he was coming back in the room. And how now they were going to call his parents and it was all over for him.
I stayed calm.
“You still have time to turn this around,” I told him.
“No I don’t! You already called and now I’m going to get in trouble!” he yelled.
“There’s still time,” I repeated. “I just need you to start your work.”
He grumbled some more. I told him again, that if he was willing to start his work, when the administrator or crisis support teacher came to the room, I would tell them we were fine. That there were no problems.
He hesitated. I asked if he was ready to learn history. He mumbled yes. And sat down at a desk across from me.
“I’m happy to help you read this, but I know you said you didn’t want to work with me. So if you’d prefer to do this on your own, that’s totally fine. I can give you space,” I told him.
“No. You can help. I’m sorry I said that I didn’t want to work with you,” the student said.
So we started reading about Prohibition together. When the crisis support teacher came to the door to check in, I told him we were fine. And when that teacher saw my student was calm and getting work done, he offered to get him a snack.
After the teacher left the room, to break the tension I jokingly grumbled to my student, “Well… he didn’t offer to get me any treats.”
My student got up from his chair and bounded into the hallway.
“HEY!” he called to the teacher. “Can you get Mrs. Jennings a Nutrigrain bar, too?”
Then he sat down in his chair. And we got back to our business. And I could not stop smiling. Because for this student on this day- after he’d been so upset with me about the injustices I’d rained down on his friend- this was a huge gesture. We spent the next hour picking our way through the assignment and chatting about his siblings and what it was like for him in elementary school.
When the teacher came back with the snacks- a couple of Nutrigrain bars and (bonus!) Pop Tarts- my student offered me the Pop Tart he’d brought from home. “It’s brown sugar- I don’t like that flavor.” I told him thank you, that was kind, but that I didn’t need it.
“Maybe one of your kids will want it,” he replied. He likes to hear stories about the girls. Especially stories about Jovie making up poop- and fart-related songs. I took took the Pop Tart, telling him they’d be grateful to him because I never buy them.
We continued working (more or less) and the bell rang and my student went on his way. And that was that.
And I know to an outsider, or to someone who hasn’t worked with students who struggle in school as much as this kid does, none of this seems like a big deal. And maybe they’d be appalled that we were rewarding a kid after he’d been so defiant earlier in the class. I don’t know that I care though.
I sure am proud of the one student who turned up for history today. He showed me that it’s never too late to turn around a bad day. And that you should never give up on someone who is having a tough time.
And in the midst of all the chaos- death, Corona, constant worry, consistent exhaustion- this is something to cheer about. That’s all for today. Just that. I’m grateful to my student for sitting across from me, and letting me help him learn.
And I know the girls will be grateful for that Brown Sugar Pop Tart.