1. Elias
ONE
Elias
September
Our new principal is an idiot.
Now, I’m no master teacher or anything, like I’m definitely not qualified to be making these sorts of calls, but I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure our new principal is an idiot and that every single person in this room thinks so as well.
And you know what, I feel kinda bad for her, in a “wow, you are a sad, sad woman” kind of way.
Courtney Thomas started in the middle of last year, after Oliver left here to go be the principal at PS 333, and she came on strong . For some reason, she decided to make all these crazy changes to our curriculum. She even made Lina, our assistant principal, change the way everyone taught in their classrooms. Which seems pretty idiotic to me, because if I remember anything from any of the Professional Developments last year, it’s that PS 2’s test scores were on the up and up, and that’s why the school gym has air conditioning.
And did you notice I said Lina did the changing? That’s because Lina does everything now. That’s right, Principal Thomas is the type of principal who makes everyone else do her dirty work, while she either hides in her office or stands on her soapbox preaching about one thing or another like she’s doing right now. To my knowledge, she’s never stepped foot in a classroom the entire time she’s been here.
Which works for me, honestly. The entire beginning of last year, Lina was on my case about “improving my instruction” or whatever. I was all like, “girl, this is P.E., let me just throw a bunch of balls into the gym and let the kids go ham for fifty minutes”, but she wouldn’t get off my case. She insisted there was a “real opportunity for learning” in the gym.
But then Principal Thomas came along, she never stepped foot into the gym, Lina got too busy to coach all forty-something teachers in the building, and now I’m left alone in peace. To throw a bunch of dodgeballs into the middle of the gym and let the kids go ham for fifty minutes.
I really do feel bad for Courtney Thomas, though. She’s young for a principal and is definitely one of those people who got to where she was because she could talk the talk. She’s been talking at us for like forty full minutes now, and it sounds like she’s very articulate and well-spoken and charming, but if you actually listen, then you realize she isn’t saying anything of substance at all. She’s good at throwing around the educational buzzwords, the ones that make teachers cringe, like “student-centered” and “growth mindset” and “deep dive” and “success criteria” and “data driven” and “small group instruction”, but what’s really fascinating is that she doesn’t actually use them in a meaningful way. She just kind of… randomly drops them into the middle of sentences.
It’s pretty impressive.
“Now,” she’s saying, “grit and perseverance, these are all things we need to have as educators. Our jobs are tough! But we must , it is our duty and our responsibility, to do whatever it takes for the good of the students and the community we serve.” She says this as condescendingly as possible, and it translates to: “you all owe me hours of unpaid time, energy, and resources.”
Mia is sitting next to me and nodding seriously, because she is exactly the type of teacher to donate said unpaid time and energy and resources for the good of her students and community.
“What did I tell you about using your own money to buy classroom supplies?” I hiss at her.
“Shhh…” she shoots back, looking straight ahead at Ms. Thomas.
I’ve known Mia for her entire life, her full twenty-nine years, and I can honestly say this is the longest she’s ever gone without making eye contact with me. And I see her every day; we live together, for fuck’s sake. This has been since the Bathroom Incident, which we’ve never once addressed, when her crazy blue eyes on my dick made me come harder than I’ve ever come in my life. This was also when I realized Mia has tits. Really nice ones. They were flushed pink and heaving… Ew .
I mean, it’s all par for the course. When Mia was eight, I walked into the bathroom on the second floor of their house. Mia was in there, her pants were down, and there was blood everywhere . I thought she’d been stabbed, or shot, or mauled by a bear, or some other fantastical tragedy only an eleven-year-old could concoct. She yelled at me to go get her mom. I ran down, and I’m pretty sure I was hysterically crying when I screamed, “SOMEONE HELP! MIA’S DYING!” Mia somehow found a way for me to be embarrassed about the whole thing, when it was her first period.
I clear my throat.
“—We have to remind ourselves of why we’re here, why we must work so hard, especially at the beginning of this school year,” Thomas is saying, and I know where this is going. “We’re going to break into small groups now, so that we can all share our ‘why’s’ with one another—” She is cut off by a chorus of groans.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Williams?” Principal Thomas shoots at the kindest, sweetest, oldest, most soft-spoken teacher we have in the building, one who most definitely didn’t groan, much less even hear what the principal had said.
“None, Principal Thomas,” she whispers, and my heart breaks a little, and this is exactly why Principal Thomas has made enemies across the school.
“Good,” she sniffs. “Now let’s break up into groups of five?—”
Mia practically sprints away from me to join a group on the other side of the room.
I sigh, rubbing my face. I really don’t want to take part in this garbage, so I mosey my way over to Thomas instead. She stands alone at the front of the room, not participating in her own activity. I dial up the charm to eleven.
“Good morning, Principal Thomas,” I tell her in a voice that’s an octave or two lower than my usual, sliding in sideways and giving her a half smile.
She’s a foot shorter than me, and she’s wearing four-inch heels. The ideal shoe, she probably thinks, to establish dominance. On the first day of work at an elementary school. When everyone else is in sweatpants. She glances up at me. “Oh, hello,” she says to my biceps.
I flex.
“Remind me of your name again,” she purrs, now towards the front of my sweatpants.
“Elias Miller, P.E. teacher,” I tell her cheerfully. “Principal Thomas, I just really wanted you to know…” I wait for her eyes to meet mine. She finally flicks them up, not ashamed in the least. “…that I really appreciated what you said earlier.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“I think what you’re doing for this school is really admirable,” I tell her, oozing charisma from every pore. “What you said earlier about deep diving into a growth mindset, and making sure to have data-driven success criteria, well, I think that was really brilliant. And I think it’s really the right direction this school needs to go in.”
She preens, thrilled. “Thank you, Elias.”
I go on. “And what you said about rigor…” I click my tongue. “I think it’s a really effective and equitable way to hold teachers accountable.”
“I’m impressed Elias. You know, you saying that leads me to believe you are an excellent teacher,” she hums.
Aaand I think I just bought myself a whole observation free school year. I pretend to be humbled. “Wow. Thank you, Principal Thomas, but I think I owe it all to the PD’s you’ve been leading since you’ve gotten here.”
She smiles, looking at me for a moment. “You know, Elias, there’s this huge international education conference coming up in New Orleans. I’d go myself, but—” she inserts a laugh here, “—someone needs to be here to run the school! Lina needs to stay, too—” to actually run the school “ —but she doesn’t think we should be spending thousands of dollars of our school budget on something such as this, when we’re still missing core curriculum.”
…And school supplies for the short-term housing kids, and air conditioning in the lobby, and maybe an updated heating system for the winter, oh, and a functional schoolyard and playground would be nice…
“I, however, think it’s of the utmost importance that we stay abreast of current educational trends. So I asked her to choose two teachers to send.” She eyes me. “But I think I’m going to send you as one of those teachers, Elias.”
Yesssssss! I throw a frown on my face. “But… what about my classes?” I ask her, with pretend anguish.
She pats my bicep. I flex it again. “It’s just P.E., Elias. We can find someone to throw some balls into the middle of the gym for a day.”
For once, we are actually in agreement on something, but it makes me feel prickly when I hear it coming from her mouth. “O-kay, no problem. When is it?” I ask her.
“It’s next week. You’d fly out Thursday night after work, attend sessions on Friday through Sunday, and fly back Sunday night. We’ll pay for your conference tickets, flights, lodging, and food.”
The grin on my face is genuine this time. Sick. An all expenses paid vacation to New Orleans. “Sounds great to me, Principal Thomas. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m really honored.”
She squeezes my bicep this time. “Don’t let me down, Elias,” she winks at me.
Now, I know I’m not a Master Teacher or anything, because I never really wanted to be a teacher in the first place.
I really wanted to do physical therapy or maybe sports medicine right after college, but… I never did well enough in school. After fucking around in the suburbs (read: living at home and bartending) for a while, I got hired to do some personal training at this tiny gym in Brooklyn. It wasn’t enough to pay the bills and the commute was getting crazy, so I got a teaching license in the meantime. Mia obviously helped me study for all the exams, and to both of our surprises, I passed (read: by the skin of my teeth). She got me a job as the P.E. teacher at 2 pretty soon after.
It’s been… fine. I don’t love being a teacher. I love the kids, love getting them moving, but I hate the bureaucracy of it all. Working as another cog in the city machine, beholden to whatever passing whim of whatever city bureaucrat is in charge. I got pretty lucky with Oliver and Lina, but Courtney Thomas sucks. Our superintendent sucks. Our current chancellor sucks. I hate the arbitrary rules and laws and observations and deadlines and deliverables and directives. I hate working for someone.
So what really brings me joy, where my ‘why’ really comes from, is from the gym. My gym. The gym that I inherited from the owner after he passed. The gym that I maintain and run myself in the industrial wasteland of Gowanus. This is my true passion, holding personal training sessions for a pretty sizable number of clients, and it’s turned out to be a pretty good side gig to supplement my depressing teacher salary. Especially when I can take two months of the summer to do it full time.
I turn the lights on, inhaling the scent of the rubber of the mats and the bleach of the cleaning supplies, and my shoulders let go of some of their tension. This is mine, my baby. I go straight to my tiny office in the corner, look up my schedule for next Thursday and Friday, and send out a few texts to reschedule some sessions.
The doorbell at the front rings, and I sprint to the front door to let my favorite client in. It’s Agent Ethel Anderson, PS 2’s eighty-year-old school safety agent, who is probably approaching the boundaries of legally blind and deaf.
I wrap her into a bear hug, carefully, because if I squeeze too tight I could actually break her bones. “Hey, Ethel. Long time no see.”
She laughs. “It’s only been about an hour since you left the school building,” she tells me.
“Every minute away from you feels like a lifetime,” I wink at her.
She scoffs at me, slapping at my arm. It feels like a butterfly’s caress.
I let her put her things away, and she hobbles over to get started.
Because of her age, most of our sessions consist of basic stretching and balance exercises. We’re working on a standing calf stretch against the wall, when she asks me, “How was your summer? I haven’t seen you since June.”
“It was pretty good. I was here for most of it, except for the one week I went to the Shore.” The image of Mia, blue eyes wide, chest flushed, flashes across my brain. I shake my head. “I have a cool client now though—some guy from the NBA. He plays for the Nets but came to me when his off-season started.” And essentially pays for an entire month’s rent. “How was yours?”
“I stayed with my sister in North Carolina the entire time. It was nice,” she says, as I have her switch legs. “Big house. Lots of stairs, though.”
“But our exercises must have prepared you for that,” I tell her.
She nods. “There’s no way I would have been able to manage them if it weren’t for you,” she tells me. My heart explodes. It’s nice to be taken seriously once in a while.