School

I just wanna tell y’all that school is totally nuts. It’s like stepping into another world, which is constantly changing and never makes sense, and this is what these kids grow up with thirty something hours a week.

First is the fun part. I get to take two sweet little kids and practice making letters with them. There’s this whole system called Handwriting Without Tears that is actually a really cool way to learn writing. This is awesome.

But then as soon as the clock changes I trade the sweeties in for this Jesus child who won’t stop preaching. I thought he was talking about one of those movies or video games, at first, with the plagues and jealous Gods and shit, but then I realized it was Sodom and Gomorrah. We do math, after I explain that I want to hear about his God about as much as he wants to hear about mine.

Then the clock changes again and I have different kids.

A few more clock changes and I’m off to “support” a misbehaving high school student. There’s no behavior plan here, and even though I’ve rejected behaviorism after being such a devotee for so long, I am uncomfortable with the lack of structure. Especially with what hangs over our heads: when he decides no one’s going to make him do anything and he’s going to sit and bang on his desk for all eternity, they end up calling the cops. I try to be very supportive so that he doesn’t have to go to jail, but it’s an art, a continual re-balancing act.

High school is fun! We got to go down to the river and take some measurements for scientists that are studying global warming. We learned how to find X. It was exciting.

Then the clock shifts again and I’m supervising elementary lunch. My mom promised that if I came and subbed I wouldn’t have to do the lunch/recess/gym cat herding, but she lied. Par for the course, shoulda known. Lemme tell ya, these kids are vicious. One of my little sweeties squashed another girls hostess cake with his bare hands. The Jesus child told a girl that she was going to hell for wearing jewelry, and then tried to convince the other kids the evolution doesn’t make sense and creationism is the way to go. So I’m all “Jesus-child, school is not an appropriate place to talk about our religions.” But as soon as I turn around he’s at it again. “Jesus-child! What did I just tell you! This is not an appropriate place to talk about your religion!” He apologises sincerely, but as soon as I turn around he’s at it again. It’s like he’s possessed by the evil forces of Christianity. “Jesus-child!! Do you want to hear about my religion? Then stop it!”

I was really considering separating him from the other kids somehow. But that would be, I’m sure, grounds for the parents to flip the fuck out about some kind of religious discrimination. On the other hand, don’t all these other children have a right to eat lunch without threats of hell? I’m telling you, school is some crazy shit.

Finally we manage to get everyone in their snow gear (you must have boots, snowpants, coat, hat, and gloves to go outside) and go outside. Having been here before, I inform everyone that there will be no King of The Hill, and that I have an absolute zero tolerance for violence and they will sit out all of recess the first time I see it. Surprisingly, they’re able to play on the jungle gym and go down the slides non-violently. The only time someone get’s kicked in the face, it’s somewhat of an accident (even if it is the kid I’ve been telling to watch what he’s doing with his big ol’ bunny boots around other people’s heads all recess). Mostly, the kids manage to go down the slides and roll around on top of each other without hurting each other.

Until I call for everyone to line up to go back inside. Bunny boot boy doesn’t get up. He’s laying on the ground holding his head. “Come on,” I tell him. He is the overdramatic problem child, the most violent one and the one that might hurt himself if you’re not watching.

“Uh-uh,” he says.

I kneel down. I don’t touch him because the last time I was here I grabbed his arm to stop him from hitting another kid and he freaked the fuck out. “Here, get up and let me see your head.”

“I can’t,” he says. Then, “my back hurts.”

Fuck. He’s not crying, but he’s serious, and even if he’s probably faking I’m not going to be the one to move him. I tell him not to move, and send another kid to get the school secretary. The school secretary has left for the afternoon, and the kid comes back with the guy who’s there working on the network. His wife is the EMT, and he runs out and checks on bunny boot boy while I bring the other kids inside. Then he pokes his head in the door and tells me to get D, the first-aid trained teacher. I ask a random parent to watch the elementary kids and I run to get D, who took off at a dead run from the front of his classroom the moment I asked. So there I was with a room full of high school students…

(Yep, crazy shit.)

I got the principal to cover the high school students, and ran back to the lunch room where my elementary kids were wandering outside to see what was going on and stealing each others gloves. I restored order there, and we moved on to PE. We played a lovely non-violent game with bean bags, and nobody got hurt. I had to keep the kids in PE for an hour because they didn’t want them to see the ambulance, and the ambulance, apparently, stayed at the school for an hour awaiting instructions and more EMT’s. Eventually they decided to take bunny boot boy to the little big city for X-rays, just in case, and the kids went back to their classroom.

By then school was almost over. There were worksheets and stuff to be gotten together for tomorrow’s Handwriting Without Tears and such, and then I ran in the dark to my mother’s house, where I am stuck because the battery in the van is dead.