8. Georgia
EIGHT
Georgia
I feel… well, not great, after that. I am putting the last “Getting to Know You” worksheet down on the final desk when there is a knock on my door. I look up.
“WELCOME TO THE PENTHOUSE, BITCH!” Emmanuel screams. Chaya, Mia, and Tamika are all smiling, standing behind him in the hallway.
I’m uneasy, suddenly, like this isn’t real. “I… this is a lot, guys. I know it was a lot of work. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything?—”
Mia rolls her eyes. “Please,” she says, as each of them comes up to hug me and thrust a tiny gift in my hand.
A fresh pack of dry erase markers. Multi-colored Post-Its. A can of coffee. An individual serving of Frosted Mini Wheats and a string cheese, clearly taken from the school cafeteria. Gifts only a teacher would give, pilfered from somewhere in the school, free to low in cost, yet full of meaning and love.
“My gift is worth the most,” Emmanuel says as he hands me the cereal and string cheese. “The way I had to fight the lunch ladies for these.”
Everyone agrees. “It’s a dictatorship down there,” explains Tamika.
My eyes tear up as I hold on to all of my presents in both arms. “Thank you. So much. And for setting this classroom up for me. You seriously saved me so much time this morning. But please don’t keep doing things like this for me; it’s seriously insane—” I can’t help but press.
A conversation with my therapist pops unbidden into my head. Georgia, you have what I like to call “self-destructive testing” tendencies. You’ve been burned in the past, so now, as a coping mechanism, you “test” people’s loyalty and kindness to you. I shake my head, trying to clear it.
“We’re happy to have you here,” Chaya shoots back. “It’s a nice feeling to have someone in this room who feels like the last piece of our puzzle.”
“We have some things to update you on,” Mia says, looking up at the clock, “before the kids come in. Which kids to look out for, which are the neediest. Who shouldn’t sit next to one another. Whose parents are the most annoying. That kind of stuff.”
The third grade team goes into Planning Mode, taking out a clipboard containing a class list, writing notes, discussing animatedly, making contributions. I glance at the clipboard, seeing notes such as “diabetic - read 504 plan asap*****”, “responsible - make your assistant”, “leader of the classroom - get him on board and the rest will follow”, “DO NOT PUT NEXT TO MAX”, “Dad batshit - do not engage”.
Tamika helps me make the finishing touches on my classroom, reorganizing some desks to reflect some notes on the clipboard.
We hear sounds of little footsteps and children’s voices echo down the hallway.
“Well,” Tamika says, clapping her hands. “Time to boogie. Our classrooms are all clustered around yours, Georgia, if you ever need anything. I’m right across the hall. Mia is on one side of you, and Chaya and Emmanuel are on the other side.”
“We’ll hear your screams,” Emmanuel confirms.
“Thanks again, guys. I’ll pay you all back at some point,” I am telling them as they walk out of the room. Another intrusive thought enters my brain. They’ve passed the test. I make a note to bring this up with my therapist the next time I see her. Stop testing people in the meantime, Georgia . They wanted you here.
Chaya scoffs and waves it off. “Stop it with that,” she says, confirming my thoughts. “Although, maybe when I go into labor and Emmanuel has to drive me to the hospital, we’ll take you up on that and throw all 30 of our kids in here.”
“What…” I begin, but she is already out of the classroom. “How many months along are you?!”
The first student who walks into my classroom is the little boy with locs and glasses, clutching onto a different yet similarly sized fantasy book as last week’s. He looks at me and beams. “I remember you,” he says.
“I remember you, too,” I tell him. “My name is Ms. Baker. What’s yours?”
“Kyrie,” he says, as he walks to his seat and begins diligently and meticulously unpacking his backpack.
“Nice to meet you, Kyrie. What are you reading?”
Kyrie stops what he is doing, makes eye contact, and is about to begin on what could be a two-hour sermon on the plot devices, rules of magic, world building, and character development of the fantasy universe he has embarked on, when the freckled, red-headed girl walks in the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” she tells me, unimpressed.
“Oh, it’s you,” I reply, matching her deadpan tone. A smirk threatens to break through her face. “I’m Ms. Baker, your new teacher. What’s your name?”
“Dorothy,” is all she gives me, sitting down at her desk with her back to me and signaling the end of the conversation.
Students continue to trickle in the door, in various stages of disarray, a parade of mismatched socks, uncombed hair, and open backpacks, exchanging hesitant smiles and whispers, their excitement tempered by a touch of apprehension.
Max walks into the classroom, and within thirty seconds, he:
Shoves poor Dorothy, who is in the middle of putting her lunchbox away
Knocks the pencil cup over
Laughs maniacally
I march over to him, knowing I have to nip this in the bud, here and now, or else the rest of the year will be a nightmare.
I tap on his desk. “Meet me outside in the hallway, please.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” he groans, but reluctantly shoves his chair back, ensuring a maximum volume screech against the floor, then marches outside, knocking a stack of papers over on the way out.
“Listen to me,” I say, once we’re in the hall. “We’re on the same team here, buddy. I’m not out to get you or anything. I just need you to follow directions, be a kind friend, and be ready to learn. That’s not asking very much.”
He rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
“When you get inside, I’m going to need you to pick up those pencils and those papers you knocked over, put them back in the cup or on my desk, and apologize to Dorothy.”
“No,” he says simply .
I tap my foot. “I have your parents’s phone numbers on a list on my desk. Do I need to give mom or dad a call?”
There is a flicker of fear in Max’s eyes, and I am immediately filled with guilt. Crap, I think Max’s dad is the one the team wrote was “batshit crazy”.
“Listen, Max. Believe me when I say that I do not want to call your parents. I can help you clean up the pencils and paper, but you’ll have to apologize to Dorothy yourself. Is that a good compromise?”
“Whatever,” he mumbles, and walks back into the classroom.
I take a deep, calming breath and follow him in.
A week passes at PS 2 without incident.
Well, at least without Major Incident.
Mr. Flores and I run into each other exactly one more time, at 7:02 AM sharp at the main doors of the school.
“Ms. Baker,” he said, nodding.
“Mr. Flores,” I smile brightly. We walk in silence, the air heavy with the unsaid words of two people who are obviously uncomfortable with one another. I am walking past his office towards the staircase, pleased that we could have one semi-normal interaction, when he clears his throat. I turn around.
“I am still waiting for those lesson plans you promised me,” he says.
Shit . I forgot. But even so… I frown in response. “You know, technically, it’s against the union contract for you to request consecutive days of my lesson plans.”
His answering frown is somehow deeper than mine. “You were the one who offered it, Ms. Baker. I am merely holding you accountable. Send what you have, so we have something to work off of during our coaching sessions, which will begin this week.”
“I apologize, Mr. Flores. I’ll get that to you right now,” I reply, already turning around, moving away, annoyed that my morning is starting off like this.
“And Ms. Baker,” he says behind me.
I make a big, dramatic deal of stopping and turning around once more. “Yes, sir?”
His pupils dilate. “I dare you to go to your Union Representative over this,” he taunts. “Try it.”
My mouth is hanging open, shocked at the absolute audacity. I sputter, about to retort, when he gives me a toothless smile, accentuating a dimple I didn’t know existed. He steps into his office and slams the door behind him.
Upstairs in my classroom, I am taking my irritation out on my laptop, the shit ThinkPad given to DOE employees, aggressively clicking the trackpad, attaching weeks and weeks of lesson plans to an email. I am competent. I am prepared, you stupid fuck.
Meanwhile, Class 302 are all still getting to know one another. Slowly, like the blind date that nobody wanted, all parties involved still hesitant in the way that “this is your forced family; prepare to spend every waking moment together in this same small room for six hours a day, five hours a week, for the next nine months” tends to be.
Kyrie starts the next book in his series. I manage to keep Dorothy and Max from killing each other.
I begin teaching our multiplication unit, in the conceptual way that teachers are forced to teach now, so at odds with the way we learned as kids. Times tables and algorithms are pushed aside in favor of “conceptual math”. I am armed with manipulatives as my shield, terms such as “arrays”, “groups”, and “commutative property” as my sword, kids scratching their heads as if they are in a foreign language class in Medieval Times.
“But… three times three is… nine,” Kyrie says. “Like that’s it. That’s the answer,” he says, perplexed.
“Yes, but do you know why three times three equals nine?” I push.
“Why do I need to know why?” Max calls out.
“I… well,” I try. “It’s like having a superpower that helps us… think creatively. Figure out solutions to all kinds of math puzzles.”
“But I know the solution to this math puzzle,” Kyrie offers gingerly. “It’s nine. The answer is nine.”
“Well, this way gives us a deeper understanding?—”
“But I understand that the answer is nine,” says Nevaeh, another little girl in the class.
“Just draw three groups of three apples,” I snap. “Make sure you draw circles around each of the groups.”
I hate teaching math.
What I do love teaching currently, however, is our unit on culture and identity. It’s a new unit I’m trying out, my lesson plans still in draft, but I think it’s a great, multidisciplinary way to teach several subjects all under one umbrella, especially at the beginning of a school year, when we’re all getting to know one another. Fiction and non-fiction reading and writing, social studies, themes such as diversity, tradition, inclusivity, respect, and community, all taught in a hands-on, immersive, engaging, and age-appropriate way. Taking Mr. Flores’s initial feedback into account ( I am adaptable ), I make sure that I punctuate their reading with explicit instruction, lessons about how to digest a non-fiction text, how to take notes, etcetera.
My students are in the middle of exploring different texts in small groups, wandering around the classroom and taking notes in their inquiry notebook about each culture they learn about, when we hear the door to our classroom open.
I am taking that particular moment to convince (read: threaten) Max to not highlight every single word in his book, as it defeats the entire purpose of highlighting to begin with. Max hears the door, and when he looks up and sees Mr. Flores, he very calmly caps his highlighter, something I had been attempting to convince (read: threaten) him to do for ten minutes.
I look at Max, like are you fucking serious? He smirks in return.
“Good morning, Mr. Flores,” I sigh.
“Good morning, Mr. Flores,” my class chants chorally after me.
“Good morning, 302,” he greets them, eyes already moving around the room. It reminds me of an eagle searching for prey, able to spot poor teaching practices from a mile away. “Please carry on,” he continues as he circulates the room. I am observing, yet again, the irritating way in which his tall and obviously muscular body wears a suit, when he announces to the class, “I’m just here to see the excellent work you are all doing.” His honey whiskey eyes finally meet mine. He gestures his head to the back of the classroom. Come.
Shivering, I stand up to meet him. “Here to tell me what a terrible job I’m doing?”
He frowns at me, a recurring response I’ve grown used to. I wonder what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a smile from him. “Contrary to what you may think, Ms. Baker, I am not merely here to find ways to ding you as a teacher.”
“Funny,” I respond. “Considering that in every conversation we’ve ever had, you’ve done just that.”
“Hm,” he replies, his mouth a firm, flat line. “Well, I guess this is not the best time to tell you I looked over your lesson plans. ”
“Why? Because you feel humbled and inspired by the true innovation and magic and wonder of the new unit plan I wrote up?” I stretch my smile from ear to ear, showing all of my teeth and most of my gums, a tragically beautiful Cheshire Cat.
“That smile makes you look more unhinged than your lesson plans, Ms. Baker,” he says, unaffected.
I drop my smile. A strange feeling of disappointment washes over me.
“After translating your plans—” he continued.
“Huh? I wrote them in English,” I cut him off, wondering if there was a mysterious and accidental ‘Translate to Spanish’ button I clicked.
“Ms. Baker, you used three different fonts. Each line of text was of a different size. Sections of little to no meaning were randomly highlighted, in a different color, or italicized. It was as if I were translating cuneiform.” He shakes his head, bemused. “I don’t know how you can function?—”
“Very well, thank you very much.” My manic smile is back. I hold his eyes. “But it was good, right?” I inspect his face, searching for any sort of reaction. It was a good unit plan. I know it was.
Something behind his eyes flickers.
“YES!” I jump up and down, gyrating and fist pumping like I am on the Jersey Shore. A cast member on the show, The Jersey Shore, that is. The Situation, okay? I am dancing like I’m Mike the Situation. Before he got sober (bless).
My students look up at my outburst. Dorothy rolls her eyes. Max jumps up from his seat, sprints to me, and imitates my dance moves. “Not to worry, 302,” I say, as I bodily move Max back to his desk. “Mr. Flores was just telling me you’re the best class in the entire school. Keep reading…let’s keep it up!”
I turn back to Mr. Flores once my students are back on task. “Sorry,” I say, unable to contain my smile. “What were you saying?”
He looks at me as if I’ve said that I organize the books on my bookshelf by color. “I will admit the unit has some good…perhaps excellent ideas, but I still want to talk to you about the organization. However,” he says, glancing at the students reading, “I think we should finish this conversation after school. It seems like they’re about to finish up, so let’s plan to meet at 3 PM.”
“Aye aye, captain,” I tell him with a salute and a grin on my face. “ Hasta luego .”
When the door shuts behind him, I start my gyrating fist pump routine again. This time, I let the entire class join me.