Like putting kittens in a box
I started tutoring in the CPS last week. I had six little kids that I adored and that adored me. Sure it was a little like controlled chaos, me with all that teaching experience, but it was controlled. I had them all tested, ready to start on this story we have to read - I was excited to see them again on Tuesday.
Tuesday in the cafeteria is the usual war zone. I collect my six and am more or less ready to move on out when the program coordinator (and I feel I should note that this is merely her title, and is not indicative of any actual coordination on her part) says to me, “Hey, one of the teachers didn’t turn up. Can you take this extra class of kids?” I am 23 and have the least teaching experience of any of the staff, so this makes perfect sense. But being the nice person I am, I say ’sure.’ My little kids are all angels, how bad could another seven kids be?
We get all the remaining kids into a group, and I’m about to call out the names when I hear cries of “Teacher! Teacher!” from my kids. In what feels like slow motion (and what proves to be foreshadowing) I turn to the right, just in time to see little Jacob projectile vomit all over his coat, backpack, and lunchroom table. The poor little thing looks up at what I’m sure is the completely incredulous look on my face, and cries, “I’ll just go to the bathroom!” But not before Dantea, the charming child next to him, starts making obnoxious barfing noises. I was completely unprepared for vomit on my second day - I don’t know what the protocol is aside from it involving that red sawdust. I don’t even know where the friggin’ bathroom is.
Naturally, you would assume that the two vice-principals on hand and the program coordinator would come to my aid. You’d be wrong. Instead, after a couple minutes of me running to the bathroom to find Jacob, running to the office to call his mother, running back to the cafeteria to see if my other kids have started spewing or are perhaps roasting a goat carcass in a satanic ritual (because what else could possibly be next?) I basically get yelled at in front of the kids by one assistant principal because I’m taking too long to get my kids minus one, plus my new seven kids out of the cafeteria.
So, up we stagger to room 205 - the same room where last week the classroom’s teacher informed me he didn’t want my class in there because he stays every day and listens to NPR. I asked the program coordinator to remedy this problem last week, so naturally we are in the same room again. This time Bart has himself, Nina Totenberg, and two other teachers merrily using the paper cutter all in his room.
We finally move to another room, again, and try to work on the stuff that I had planned for the day. Except that the other class of kids has already completed this activity. BUT! their wisely escaping teacher collected the sheets, so they have nothing to show for it. So I have to have them do it again. Being seven, this repetitive activity proves very boring and they are just rambunctious as all hell while I’m trying to sort out the last half of the sheet with my kids. Plus, I’ve got a new kid that hasn’t done any of it - plus he can’t read or write at all, so this activity is equally frustrating for the both of us. The other class of kids are clearly very bright; in fact, I’m told later that most of them are gifted, begging questions such as ‘why are there gifted kids in this literacy and math program for poorly performing students?’ Being both bright and bored, they proceed to run roughshod over my nerves and will to live for the next hour and a half.
As we’re getting to walk down the last flight of stairs and into the glorious light of freedom, one teacher says to me, “Now if you have trouble with those three [boys that have totally been giving you heaps of trouble for the last two hours], you just let me know because I’m their teacher.” As she completes this sentence, I turn back to watch them sled down the stairs on their backpacks. I let it go; it was kind of an apt conclusion to the day.
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