A Day in First Grade or Why You Might Not Want Me to Be Your Sub

After

"Help," I cried, within the first moments of opening the classroom door to a passel of first-graders. I fled into the adjoining teacher's classroom, three single-spaced typed pages of teaching plans sweaty in my hands. I had only checked off 1. Take Attendance, and bedlam reigned.


"I don't think I can do this," I declared.


The other first grade teacher, a tall, kind-eyed man with a reddish brown beard smiled. "What do you mean?" he asked.


"I mean I can't do this!"


He followed me back into my classroom. Eleven children tumbled on the grey carpet in the circle area like manic puppies. One little brown-eyed boy bounced on a large blue exercise ball. Blocks were strewn about. Plastic baggies containing slim reading-buddy books were heaped by an easel upon which was written the Morning Message. There was a tumbled pile of homework folders, papers spilling out.


A cacophony of tiny shrill voices greeted us.


"He's not supposed to be on the ball!"


"It's the teacher's ball."


"No-o," the little bouncer Pierce, said, bouncing higher. "Mind your own business."


"First graders," my fellow adult, Eric, chanted in a dulcet-toned Mr. Rogers voice, "We have a guest teacher. Can you be kind and helpful today for our guest teacher?"


"No-o!"


"Okay!"


"You'll be all right," Eric said, patting me on the arm. He walked over to a white wall phone by the door, and pointed out an extension number.


"If you have any trouble, just call Mr. C in the PFS room, tell him what the situation is, and send the child up to see him."


"Thanks," I said.


I slid atop the teacher ball, and promptly slid off to a chorus of giggles. Chris sat on Jack, who burst into tears. Quinn, Mikala and Sophie climbed onto a bookcase, dislodging an arrangement of building blocks.


"They're not supposed to sit there!" Sierra alerted me.


"That was my castle!"


"Mind your own business!"


"No-o, mind yours!"


Some children spun in mini purple camp chairs. Someone was doing sit-ups. A few bucked like burros.


Nevaeh, or as had been loudly explained to me, Heaven-spelled-backwards lay on her tummy, yellow sweatshirt hood covering her curly head.


"Dear God," I said.


"So, can everyone please sit up and we can begin with ah, (I consulted my plans) a High 5 Hello. Er, how exactly does that work?" I whispered to Sierra, who was perched on a T-shaped green wooden structure.


"You give your neighbor a high 5 and say Good Morning," Sierra explained patiently.


The children went around the circle high 5-ing like mad until Jack got to me.


"What's your name?" he asked.


"I'm Mrs. Palmer," I said.


"Good morning, Mrs. Popper," Jack said, whopping my hand with gusto.


"Good morning, Mrs. Pom!"


"Good morning, Mrs. Pooper!"


"Mrs. Po!"


"Mrs. Poo!"


"Good morning," I answered, desperately scanning my body for signs of the flu.


"Can I go to the nurse?" Sophie asked. She proffered a pinkie.


"What's wrong?" I asked.


"My pinkie has an ache."


"Sure, go ahead," I said generously.


Just then, I became aware of a Gollum-like presence worming its way across the floor on its stomach. 


"Who are you?" I called out.


"That's William!"


"Why are you crawling on your stomach, William?" I asked. Clearly not comfortable with a direct question, William beat a hasty retreat by propelling himself backwards with his arms like Anansi the Spider to a far corner of the room. I spied pillows and a hooked rug.


"Can he be there?" I consulted Sierra.


"Yes, it's the Quiet Corner."


"How long should he stay there?"


"As long as he likes."


"Can I join him?"


"No-o!" said Sierra.


"It's sharing time!" Six voices announced.


"Okay, who'd like to share?" I asked.


Mikala's hand shot up.


"No-o! She shared last time!"


"I can share again," Mikaka said.


"That's not fair!" 10 voices yelled.


"Can she share again?" I asked Sierra.


"Yes," Sierra intoned, a pint-sized King Solomon.


Mikala's share was an overly long tale about having supper with her family at a place in town called The Firefly. She and someone else, a cousin, sister, or possibly an uncle were playing a game called "Dummies." Three children were allowed to ask a question or make a comment.


Jack raised his hand. "What was the game, anyway?" 


"I don't get it," Chris said.


"We were playing "Dummies," Mikala repeated, "at The Firefly -"


"She doesn't get to say it all again!" Pierce shouted.


"Okay, okay," I said. "I think people might be a bit confused," I explained to Mikala.


"I'm confused!" Pierce shouted.


"I'm confused too," Nevaeh sighed. 


"Since everyone is confused," I interrupted. "Let's just move on."


Next, Chris shared his Lego instruction book.


"That's confusing," Mikala commented.


Pierce, who had somehow resumed possession of the Teacher Ball, bounced on Ian, who began to wail.


"That wasn't kind or respectful," I said. "You'll have to go up to the PFS room." Then there were 10, I thought, or 9 if William stays in the corner.


Muddled memories of the rest of the morning mayhem are all that remain. I read a book called Amazing Grace, which prompted Nevaeh to break into song. There was seat work: cutting and pasting sentences that depicted the beginning, middle and end of the story. There was a fact or opinion page, which I explained 11 times. Children wearing headphones appeared for reading groups, reading aloud simultaneously something about a dragon, which was really a line of children going to the library, perhaps in China. During handwriting, children practiced writing F's. 


"Who can give me a sentence using a word that begins with the sound of ph?" 


Chris leaped to his feet from his sanctuary beneath his desk.


"William farted on me!" he proclaimed triumphantly.


"No-O!" William bleated from the corner. "I did not!"


I made for the phone.


"Another one is on his way," I said into the receiver.  


Mikala gave me two paper snowflakes. Sierra offered to hold my hand. Ian approached me just before lunch, hunch-shouldered, to mutter that he just wanted to have a good day. "Me too, buddy," I agreed. "Me too."


I ate my lunch in my car while plotting my escape.


"Can't I just go home now?" I begged my friend Diana, a Pre-K teacher in the hall outside my classroom.


"No," she said. "You can't."


"WHY-Y?" I whined.


"Because you just can't," she said.

Ladies' Luncheon

"Are you sure I'm invited to lunch?" I asked my mother. After two weeks of accompanying her to a seemingly endless round of social events, I was pooped out. I had nothing left to say.


"Of course you're invited!" Mom enthused. "It's a mother-daughter lunch!"


"Why do your friends have to sit all the way in the back?" I complained. I had my mother's elbow as we trudged painfully through the dining room, slow as snails.


"You're pushing me!" My mother said. "Stop it. I'm walking as fast as I can."


"If you'd just try to take big - "


"Don't say it! Don't tell me to take big steps!" Mom shot back.


"It would help your balance if you took longer steps," I explained. "Those halting, mincing steps are dangerous."


"They're NOT halting!"


"They're not steps," I growled. 




When we arrived at the table I saw that it wasn't a mother-daughter luncheon at all. It was me and Mom and her two dear old friends, two sisters, Rosie and Mare. I gazed at the ocean, several hundred tantalizing feet away. I looked with longing at the rows of inviting lounge chairs by the pool.


Oh, well, I thought. I remembered when there had been a table of 12 every Friday; now there were 3. And me.


"Tell me, Amy," Mare said. She was wearing a beautiful pink flowered blouse and white slacks. A cloud of curled white hair framed her face with its clear blue eyes. "How much longer will you be staying?"


"We have to leave on Monday," I replied.


"Oh, that's a shame," Mare said. "Have you had a good time?"


"Yes," I said. "It's been wonderful."


I looked over at Mom, who was swiping at a palm leaf that drooped over her head.


"Do you want to move?" I asked.


"What?"


"The palm tree?" I pointed. "Is it bothering you? Do you want me to move you closer to the table?"


"What?"


"THE PALM TREE! IS IT BOTHERING YOU?"


"No, it's fine."


"Tell me, Helene," Mare said, turning to my mother. "How long can you stay?"


"We're leaving Monday," Mom said. "I wish we could stay longer, but Amy has to go back to work, and the girls seem to feel that one of them has to be with me while I'm here."


"And how long will you be staying this time?" Mare asked, turning to me.


"Until Monday," I sighed.


"Did you like The Music Man?" Rosie asked Mom. We had gone to a matinee the day before, and had nearly come to blows.


"Can't say I did," she answered. "All the music seemed repetitive somehow and boring, but Amy liked it."


"I loved it," I said. "And I saw it twice. You kept falling asleep."


"I did not!"


"Did too."


"Did not."


"Did too."


"Tell me, Amy, where do you live?" Mare interrupted.


"I live in Vermont."


"Oh, Vermont. We used to ski in Vermont years ago, up north somewhere..." she mused.


"Was it Stowe?" I ventured.


"Yes! It was Stowe."


"I'm going to The Music Man next Saturday," Rosie said. Her sleek blonde hair was swept to the side and she flashed an engaging smile. 30 years before, she and my young daughter had blown a ping pong ball back and forth across her dining table.


"It was hard to understand," Mom stated, pouring a packet of brown sugar on the table a good few inches from her tea cup.


Despite myself, I began to giggle.


"It's not funny," Mom said crossly.


"What, dear?" Rosie asked. "What's not funny?"


"Can I help?" I said to Mom, little remorse darts spiking my heart.


"No!" Mom retorted. "I can do it!"


"Amy, where do you live?" Mare asked.


"Vermont," I breathed, chomping down on a piece of rosemary cheddar flatbread.


"Oh! Vermont! We used to go there years ago..."


"Stowe?" I asked.


"Stowe!" Mare said, delighted.


"Do you know what Amy did?" Mom said, apropos of nothing.


"No," Rosie and Mare answered, turning to me.


"She walked on live coals!"


"Why would she do that?" The two sisters looked confused.


"Shall we order?" I suggested, holding up my menu. I had decided on a beet salad.


"Oh," Mare beamed. "Will you be joining us?"

Saturday Morning Conversation

"Amy!" Mom calls, the instant my sneakered toe crosses the threshold. I am crimson-faced and sweaty from an hour at the gym, worrying about a small terrier that yipped at me from a car in the parking lot.


"Yes!"


"I can't get Lynn! When I dialed the phone, a man came on and told me the line was no longer allegated. It made me think an alligator had eaten the phone or something!"


"I think you mean allocated," I giggle. "I'll dial it for you."


"I did dial it!"


"Well, maybe you just missed a number or something."


When Lynn, my mother's invaluable administrative assistant/driver/"4th daughter" answers, Mom and I are laughing and Lynn begins to laugh too.


"I can't wait to hear this one," she says.


"Allegated," my mother repeats, as I leave the room. "Made me think an alligator..."


"Amy!" she yells a minute or two later. "Do we have time to have lunch with Barbara Longfellow before The Music Man?"


"No!" I yell from my room. Even though I have already seen The Music Man just last week, I'm taking Mom to a matinee. I'm looking forward to it. I know all the words to all the songs. Mom took me to Broadway to see Robert Preston in the starring role when I was a child, and even though I dropped my toy derringer pistol with a clatter during Gary, Indiana, I still tremble and thrill when the curtain goes up.


"Who is coming for dinner tonight?" she asks, appearing at my door.


"Lulie," I remind her. "Your niece."


"Oh yes, of course. Did I ask Rosie?"


"I don't know."


"Oh! I asked the McIlwaine's, but, they think they have a previous engagement. The couple may be sick or something, so they may be able to come after all. I guess I should wait to hear from them first before I ask Rosie. Although, if they can't come and I haven't asked Rosie, it would just be you and me and..."


"Lulie."


"Yes, Lulie."


"We could just wait awhile and see what the McIlwaine's say, and we're having lunch with Rosie tomorrow anyway," I sigh. I'm knackered and not just from my workout.


"Rosie and Roz," Mom says.


"Right."


Mom marches inch by inch back to her room and when I peek in, she's wriggling into her black flowered bathing suit.


"I'm going to sit in the sun for an hour," she tells me. She reaches for some Aquafor cream and swipes some across the fronts of her thighs and her shoulders.


"That's grease, Mom," I say.


"So?"


"So, you don't want to burn."


"Why not? I want a tan."


I bring some sunblock from my room and gently rub the white cream into her shoulders. She wrenches away.


"It's just some sunblock," I tell her. "Look," I say brandishing a freckled arm. "I have a tan, and I've been using this."


She takes a washcloth and wipes away the sunblock on her forehead.


"You used to do this to us," I tell her. "And we hated it too."


"I did?"


"Yes."


"Dick called me," she says. Dick is 96 or 97 and lives in New Jersey. He is a retired newspaper magnate, and Mom turned down his marriage proposal roughly 65 years ago to marry Dad. ("I had 7 notches on my hairbrush," she told me, beaming. 7 proposals.) They became re-aquainted a few years back, but during a visit to her in Florida, poor Dick had to call his doctor and replenish his supply of Valium. She rather tortured him on several other occasions, because she didn't want him to think she was after him for his money.


"And?" I smile.


"Poor thing, I really think he's losing it. He wants me to come over for a visit."


"Did you tell him you were in Florida?"


"Yes. I told him I'd try to go when I get back."


Mom inches toward the sliding glass doors and the sun.


"Your hair might get drippy," I tease.


"So what," she retorts. "Laurel?" she addresses her nurse, "Where's my hat?"

Travels With Gogs: Florida

From her post in the kitchen at Command Central, my mother grabs the phone. The surface of her desk is strewn with items like the small pink shell dish containing her daily pill regimen of krill oil, vitamin D, Alkazone (an alkaline booster) and PS ("the ultimate brain food.") Her address books are fanned out before her, plaid strands of Christmas ribbon serving as page markers. Her Florida friends are highlighted in yellow. There is a list of impending social events, dinners and bridge games written in red marker, columns of things to do. She's got piles of carefully scissored-out articles from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. There's a flyer from EarthingSecrets.com.

"Hello?" she says. "Who? No, this is her mother. It's Helene! And how's himself?"

"Mom," I interrupt, "Is that for me?"

Without meeting my eyes, she gesticulates in such a way that means can't you see I'm on the phone?

We go to hear Alan Mulally, President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company tell us the Ford Story during The Five O'Clock Hour. As we inch toward the lecture room over the checkerboard marble floor, I wonder why there isn't an assemblage of wheelchairs to speed elderly people along. 

"Big steps," I urge Mom. "Big steps. Keep walking."

"I am walking!" she retorts, leaning on her leopard spotted cane.  I hold her left arm in a steady grip.

I maneuver her to the front row of a side room where there is a large TV screen so she can see Mulally,  who is in a larger room nearby.

"How did we ever get to sit in the front row?" she asks. Even though her vision is spotty, she spies a little clipboard fitted with an index card and pencil on the seat where I am to sit. She goes for it.

"Oh," she asks, "Did you get one of these too?"

Mulally is an animated speaker and Mom takes notes. Then I feel her head on my shoulder. I nudge her.

"What?" she whispers.

"You were asleep," I tell her softly.

"I was not."

I am reminded of a time when she and my father were at the opera and there was a sudden loud and insistent snore in my mother's vicinity. My father, lost in the music, became the innocent recipient of a vicious pinch.

I nudge her again. And again.

As we creep back over the marble checkerboard floor, my mother stops to tell a few dozen people that her grandfather was a friend of Henry Ford, and that her family had one of the first convertibles ever made, a dreamy shade of blue.

"Everyone wanted to go for a ride in it," she says. "I was very popular."

Over dinner at the Lemon Tree with its complimentary glass of wine and bland food, I remember the earlier phone call.

"Who was that on the phone before?" I enquire.

My mother gives me a blank look.

"When?"

"You know, someone called before the lecture and asked for me and you started talking..."

"I have no idea," she says. "What did I say?"

After dinner, as my mother slowly turns herself around so she can lower herself into the front seat of the car, she pauses and straightens up, cocking an ear.

There is a small group of people clustered on the sidewalk, chatting and moving their arms in animated conversation.

Mom waves in their direction.

"What?" she calls. "Did someone say Helene?"

It Doesn't Quite Add Up

It began with a stream of unexceptional thoughts: Katherine's birthday is tomorrow, oh, yeah, I want to mail that birthday card and I still have time to get a coffee before school starts and here's the place where I can turn around and BLAM! I ran my new blue Prius up and over a snow-covered curb with a wrist-wrenching thud, and jerked to a stop 100 yards from where I had intended to turn. DAMN! I yelled. HOW STUPID! Air hissed from my left front tire, and the plastic sheathing protecting the undercarriage was buckled and torn. Screws dangled. Pieces of mangled black plastic lay in the road.

Just yesterday I had been congratulating myself on how carefully I was driving these days, how long it had been since my last speeding ticket - except for the one in California two years ago -  how my insurance rates had dropped, how mature I was becoming in general...

BLAM!

I drove to school and parked, resigned to the fact that my tire would be flat by the end of the day. I would deal with it later.

"Good morning!" the school secretary greeted me.

"Hi," I said.

"Let's see, today you're in 7th grade math."

"Math?" I repeated. "Are you sure you don't mean language arts?"

"No, it's math."

"Not social studies?"

"Math."

I have taught some math, an extremely elementary form of it, possibly up to fourth grade level, but no further. If, in my role as assistant, it fell to me to teach a lesson in fourth grade, I could safely turn to the answers in the back of the teacher's manual. If a student asked me how I had arrived at an answer, I solicited aid from Hannah, aged 9.

The 7th grade teacher had thoughtfully left me a lesson plan. The math text book lay open to a page filled with what was quite possibly ancient Sumerian, although it was titled "Coordinate Graphing." I identified charts with intersecting and bisecting lines and arrows and points and letters. There were some algebraic terms: x-axis, polynomial, and linear equation. 

I remembered that when I had coached middle school students in remedial math, a fellow teacher had organized the lessons for me. We had shared space in the same classroom, so when situations arose - such as the rare student actually wanting to know the mechanics of something - I could summon my friend for help.

Once the school principal had pulled me aside after observing a literacy class, and after congratulating me on the efficacy of my teaching style, the engagement and liveliness of my students, he asked bluntly, "But, you don't really teach much math, do you?"

"Not much," I admitted.

After the 7th graders swarmed in, and we ran through the pledge and morning announcements, we played a few rounds of Mum Ball. Mum Ball is a game played silently in which a soft Nerf-ish ball is pitched around the classroom. If you drop it, you're out, if you throw it too hard, you're out. If it goes in the fish tank or out the window, game over. I figured if we played for 15 minutes, that would be nearly half the class.

"Are we gonna to do some math today?" Jimmy finally asked.

"Oh, we have time for one more game," I told him. "What's the rush?"

When the Mum Ball flew onto a shelf containing glass beakers, and a scuffle between 2 basketball players broke out, I grudgingly agreed it was time to stop.

I stood behind a wooden podium at the front of the classroom, math textbook open, and read the instructions aloud. Then I had Jimmy read them again. I pointed to the white board where there was something that looked like an example of the indecipherable Coordinate Graphing and said, "If you get confused, you can just um, look here."

"Any questions?" I asked.

Heads shook no. I breathed. I remained at the podium poring over the answer page, willing some sort of meaning to emerge.

Please I thought don't let anyone have a question.

"Mrs. Palmer?" 

"Yes?" I replied.

"I don't really get this," a girl with red hair muttered. 

"Hmm," I said, feigning thoughtfulness, "Well, what's your best guess?"

"Huh?"

"Okay," I said. "I'm going to level with all of you."

Heads looked up.

"I don't do math. I'm a writer. So if people are having trouble, perhaps one or two of you who actually understand this coordinate graphing stuff could help the others out. Practice some team teaching or something."

Hands went up. The class worked it out; so did the succeeding class. I remained behind my protective wooden podium, math text open. Nestled ever so discreetly between its pages was my Kindle. As the class worked, I finished The Art of Fielding. 

At the end of the day, having arranged for a mechanic to put on my spare "donut" tire and having limped to my automobile dealership, and having conversed with the insurance company, I actually practiced a little math myself. I was able to calculate that the repairs to my car, out-of-pocket, would roughly total a month's pay.

Substitute

They swarmed through the second grade classroom door, puffy snow-suited legions of them, dragging back packs, their snow-booted feet scuffing the floor.


"Good morning," I said in my teacher voice, my sub plans clutched in my hand. "I'm Mrs. Palmer." I pointed to the white board where, after five attempts, I had neatly printed my name in red marker.


"Where's Mrs. D?" 


"She's in a meeting today."


"Ooooohh."


"What meeting?"


"Will she be back tomorrow?"


"Yes," I said, "She will be back tomorrow."


Momentarily mollified, they milled about, shoving a bit, piling their clothes into cubbies, pulling out snacks, stacking colored homework folders in a basket by the door.


 I surveyed the classroom: books and print and letters and numbers and pictures and student art and projects filled the learning space. There was a milk carton village and a helper chart; tables everywhere held stacks of books and piles of mad minute math sheets and cursive practice sheets. More bookshelves lined the walls. A display in the front of the classroom contained books about Chinese New Year and groundhogs and science and re-cycling and thunderstorms. Color and space coalesced to form a riot of language and sensory stimuli.


A little girl with glasses and brown hair tugged on my arm.


"Did the groundhog see his shadow?" she whispered.


"We-ll..." I stalled. In my rush to pick up my courage inducing Dunkin' Donuts cappuccino, I had missed that vital bit of information. 


I needn't have worried.


"Yes, he did!"


"No, he didn't!"


"Actually, in Vermont they're called woodchucks," said a little boy whose blonde hair stuck up in electric hat hair tufts.


"It doesn't matter whether he did or not," said a little girl with a lime green barrette, arms akimbo, "because, it's always winter somewhere."


"No, it's not!"


"Yes, it is!"


"All right," I interrupted, "Let's go have circle time."


"Circle time, what's that?"


"You know, when you all sit together in a circle and talk a bit about the day," I stammered, glancing again at the day's typed schedule before remembering that circle time was a ritual in a previous grade.


"It's not called circle time, it's called morning meeting!"


"It's when we read the morning message!"


"Oh," I said. "Then let's all sit down over on the grey rug and get started."


What they heard was: Everyone twirl in dizzying concentric circles while flailing your arms and yelling at the top of your voice.


"First, you do the calendar," Fee explained, placing a comforting hand on my leg.


"I have to go the bathroom!" Jeremy announced.


"Okay," I said.


"Can you tie my shoe?" Tommy demanded, proffering a black sneaker at eye level.


"Sure," I said.


A little girl approached me solemnly and gently pried a yellow plastic star with the number 97 on it from my hand. 


"I'll put this up for you," she offered.


"Okay," I said. 


As she pulled a chair to the window, clambered up and stretched on one toenail to press the yellow plastic star with the number 97 to a number line after the number 96, someone shouted, "She can't climb on a chair!"


"She's getting down now," I said, hastening over and helping her down.


"I have to go to the bathroom!" Jeremy shouted again, pinching the front of his pants while hopping on one foot.


"Didn't you just get back?' I asked.


"I have to go again!"


"Okay," I said.


Eventually, everyone sat or, if they were boys, collapsed dramatically as if shot.


"Now, let's take turns and greet each other," I said. "Fee, will you please start?"


"Good morning, Charlie, how are you?" Fee chanted, turning to Charlie and grasping his hand.


"Good," said Charlie, who turned to Brian.


"No, you're supposed to ask Fee how she is!" Several voices shouted.


"Charlie, please ask your friend Fee how she is," I instructed.


"Friend? She's not my friend," Charlie stated. "She's just in my class."


"Sarah took Sam's pencil," a little boy said, tapping my shoulder, "And you're supposed to send the attendance down now."


"Leah has mints!" Conan said, and she's selling them to Tommy."


"Okay," I said, "I'll take care of it, but you need to keep the focus on yourself."


"Focus?" asked Conan. 


"Like a camera!" Several more voices shouted.


"What I mean is -  oh, look, let's just finish greeting each other," I sighed.


"Good morning, Mrs. Palmer, how are you?" Jeremy shouted close to my right ear.


"Frankly, not so well," I replied.


During the ensuing clamor that began as Literacy Block, I attempted to capture everyone's attention.


I turned the lights off.


I turned the lights back on.


I flicked them twice.


"One, two, three, look at me!" I tried loudly, turning two fingers toward my own eyes.


"It's not 'one, two, three, look at me,'" Shelby giggled. "It's one, two, three, eyes on me."


"Thanks, Shelby," I said. "ONE, TWO, THREE, EYES ON ME!" I more or less bellowed.


"You will now work on your literacy packet," I explained. "First, practice your spelling words; next, please do 2 handwriting sheets - "


"I have to go to the bathroom!" Jeremy shouted.


"You've gone twice," I said. "That's enough."


"But, I have to!" 


"Okay, but this is it," I warned. "Make the most of it."


"Where was I?" I asked.


"Over by the white board," Fee said.


"No, I mean... thanks Fee, never mind. All right, troops, you will be working on 2 handwriting sheets, then you will take turns reading with me."


"Can I go to the media center?" chirped Freddie.


"After you finish your work," I said firmly, feeling a modicum of control within reach.


"But, I don't have any books to read!" Freddie wailed.


"After...you...finish...your...work," I repeated.


"You're allowed to send four people down," Freddie explained.


"I'll go!" 12 voices shouted.


"No, no one leaves until his or her work is finished," I said. I circled the classroom slowly with one arm outstretched as if leveling a death ray.


"Can I read with you first?" Shelby asked.


"Sure," I answered. "It needs to quiet in here, so everyone can concentrate," I said, placing a finger over my lips.


"I can't concentrate," Tommy complained. "If my sneaker is untied."


"I don't want to do any work," Jeremy complained. "Can't I just go to the bathroom?"


"NO!" I said. "And no more talking!"


"Let's play the quiet game!" someone said.


"Yay, yay, the quiet game!"


As Shelby read to me, the quiet game was played eleven times. Jeremy demanded bathroom privileges four more times; two little boys hung by their chins over their chair backs; hundreds of pencils were sharpened; dozens of tiny water bottles were crinkled in small hands; packages of cold Eggo pancakes were consumed.


"You're a doof," Shelby read aloud from her read-aloud selection.


"A douche??" Tommy repeated.


"I don't want to do this work now," Madison complained.


"I'd rather be home in a quiet room drinking a nice cup of coffee, but I'm here," I said. "We all have to show up and do our work."


"I can't even have coffee," sniffed Madison.


"It is a half day today, right?" I asked a passing teacher in the hallway as my students skipped and leaped and jostled their way to music class.


"Subbing today?" she enquired.

*

Ringing in the New (Job)?

I allowed myself a few days of scathing self-criticism for being fired from a mere month's employment as a telephone service representative for a company whose owners made a guest appearance on the Martha Stewart Show to promote some sort of puff candy.


I withdrew and ate avocados, with the curtains drawn. I watched NCIS.


Finally, I had to agree that it had not been the right job for me.


"It was a dumb job," Jane commented. "Let it go."


I decided to call my daughter for help with re-vamping my resume.


"Hi, Claudia," I said to her company's receptionist. "Is Katherine available?" I asked, wondering if this might be the day after 5 years of frequent calling that Claudia would recognize my voice.


"Who's calling, please?" Claudia asked.


"It's her Mom," I sighed. 


"Hi, Mom. What's up?" my daughter answered cheerfully.


"I need some help with my resume."


"Oh, boy. Do you have anything written down yet?"


"Of course I do. I've had other resumes, you know, for other jobs."


"Well, send it along and I'll take a look at it."


"Could you possibly look at it now?" 


"Yes, now would be okay," she agreed. "But, you're sort of pushy."


I emailed what I had, and waited.


There was the sound of muffled guffawing when my daughter returned my call. "Okay, so what is this?" she began.


"You know what it is," I said.


"Well, first of all, everything ran together on the page. Do you even know how to send an attachment?"


"Of course I do!" I said grouchily.


"Well, never mind, it has to be redone anyway. Completely redone."


"I know, I know, that's why I called you," I said with mock sweetness.


"First of all, no one cares that you played on a traveling 4.0 tennis team, or that you like to hike, garden and take pictures."


"But - "


"And where are the dates? You can't just put "The 80's," and list stuff. It has to be specific. But, don't worry, we'll fix it."


We laughed while my daughter patched my resume, and I was able to remember some important dates, like when I had graduated from college, and what years I had taught and the specificities of teaching literacy and writing. My happiest times, career-wise had been working in school, exploring literary themes, encouraging reading skills and self-expression. I remembered the sweetest expression of pride, when a child struggled through reading a difficult passage aloud. The shy triumph. I had loved connecting with those students. 


Recently, I assisted at a Montessori School. The space with its many windows and wooden floors and plants was large and bright, filled with sun. There were learning stations where the 4 and 5-year-olds did their "work." They swept the floor and connected a set of wooden railroad tracks, and kneaded and rolled homemade play-doh. They shared. They painted wooden holiday trees. They mixed food coloring with soap suds and made observations. 


"Sam is my boyfriend," Lela said, indicating a small boy wearing a ball cap and grey plastic sunglasses with orange lenses.


"I'm not a boyfriend," Sam said.


At snack, the teacher Steff and I sat at the oblong table with the children, me trying to tuck my long legs under the child-sized table. Sara and Jarod passed plates of carrots and dip, while Susanna and Zeke handed out napkins and cups. I shared my dried papaya.


"Shall we say our poem today?" Steff asked.


"Yes!" everyone cried.


"1-2-3," the children recited, "Take a deep breath. Bon appetit. It's time to eat."


"Now Miss Amy will teach us some meditation," Steff said, as we reassembled in the circle area. 


We each had a small mat and I smiled at the rapt little faces, at the flexible little bodies sitting so effortlessly cross-legged, hands placed on their knees.


"Does anyone know what a sentient being is?" I asked.


"Is it a planet?" Jarrod asked.


"Close enough," I said. "Let's just sit and feel our bodies breathing. It's how we relax and just be."


"I like just being," Susanna said.


That's how I discovered the classroom is where I want to be now, in some capacity, preferably at an elemental level - say kindergarten, where I don't have to worry much about math.