Kids sent to the office: more than I remember (4? 5? something like that)
Kids who threw me completely off by standing up and announcing a decision to voluntarily go to the office: 2
Best thing I had to say: “LUCAS! Put your tooth BACK in your pocket!”
Look here for part 1: http://www.porchcoffee.org/2012/02/16/place/
One week plus some change later, I get a call. From the teacher. Here’s how the call went down:
Teacher: Hey Dave…I don’t know you want to come back [he was only a little bit joking], but I’m going to need a sub for a day in two weeks.
Inside Dave’s head: Oh no. I was really hoping no calls from this guy for a while. Those kids owned me, trounced me, played me like a fiddle and hung me out to dry. Is it even physically possible for mayhem and pure chaos to NOT fly into destruction mode at the moment I walk into that room if I walk into that room again?
Dave [with the bravado of an angry mother grizzly bear]: Absolutely, bring it on!
Inside Dave’s head: you idiot.
Teacher: Great! You know the drill, and I’ll leave the day’s plan on my desk.
Dave: Perfect. How have the freshman been, have they recovered yet from that horrible day with that wackjob sub?
Teacher [laughing]: Well, they went into a pretty hard spiral, the room turned into hell on wheels for the rest of the week. But they know they’re on a short leash, things have calmed down a little bit.
Inside Dave’s head: YOU IDIOT.
Dave: ok, sounds good!
Inside Dave’s head: really. Really?
Two weeks go by, the morning comes, I wake up, have my cup of coffee and breakfast and make the long drive to the school, deep breath and in I go. The bell rings and the kids come in, easy now Dave easy, deep breath you are nothing but pure calm and tranquility and teacher, you are the champion and you are ok these kids are great, easy now Dave, easy. Little stuff let it bounce off you like tiny hail, big stuff keep your cool and do what you know how to do. Easy now Dave, easy.
And here’s what happened: it was a great day. Everything went smooth. The kids were great.
Inside Dave’s head: Right. Go figure.
This community, Maxbal (spoken Mash-bal) is a two and a half hour rough-road (anything without low geared 4wd can’t make it) drive away from the town I live in.
This is the first group of students, ever, to graduate from 9th grade–the community was proud.
The teachers had the students go out into the soccer field to take their picture while the game continued.
While this short scribbling is the type of thing generally reserved for twitter or facebook, they say your most important audience is yourself, and in this case the most important audience dearly feels this short scribbling is more significant than facebook world and/or twitter world are good for.
Without more ado:
When I click the button in the other open browser tab, I will have submitted the last homework (ironically an essay on education) of my undergrad career; my last lecture is today from 1:00 to 3:20.
*click*
*silence*
Wow.
Edit:
Class got out at slightly after 2:00. College is an interesting thing; I finished it this afternoon.