Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

DAY FIFTEEN. Wednesday, May 7, 2014

BUCKLAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ROVING

BUT WE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING

BUCKLAND ELEMENTARY WAS another one-story eighties brick school in the middle of a nowhere of pine trees. Ms. Parsons, a secretary, gave me a sign-in clipboard and told me to put, under teacher, “Roving.” “Do you have anything for the refrigerator?” she asked. I didn’t. I clipped on my substitute badge.

She took me to the teachers’ room. “We’ve had Teacher Appreciation Week this week,” she said. “There’s salads and brownies and fruit. Anything on the table, help yourself.” She showed me around the cafeteria, the gym, the library, and the computer lab. There was only one other man on staff, so the small teachers’ bathrooms were both unisex. “We’re very small. We have eight classrooms. You can help out by opening the door when the kids come in.”

The door was locked from the inside until the bell rang, so I held it ajar with my foot and pushed it open for each new arrival.

A brother and sister arrived carrying teacher-appreciation flowers. A girl with red fancy shoes and her mother came in, admiring the bed of tulips by the entrance. “Do you know what ants do to make flowers grow?” the girl asked.

“No, I don’t, honey,” said her mother.

“I do!”

They went inside. An early bus arrived. I said good morning a lot. “I love your beard,” said a tiny blond person.

“Who are you?” asked a kindergartner.

“I’m a substitute here,” I said.

“It looks like you’re president,” she said.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, sir. Hiya doing? Good morning.

A slightly older girl was wiping away tears. I asked her if everything was all right.

“Yes,” she said.

The early arrivals massed in the cafeteria. The principal, Mrs. Pilgrim, came by to say hello. “You’re going to be the roving sub today,” she said. “We’re trying to do some assessments.”

“Sure,” I said.

Morning. Good morning. Hi, guys. Good morning.

A middle-aged teacher came up. “Can I help you with something?”

“I’m just helping people with the door. I’m a roving sub.”

“Oh, okay,” she said.

Another mother arrived with her daughter, who was wearing a flowery pink shirt and white, shiny shoes.

“Don’t you look absolutely beautiful today!” said the teacher to the girl.

“I bought that shirt for three dollars at Marshall’s,” said the mother.

Ms. Parsons called out that she was still working on my schedule. “Five more minutes,” she said. She went into the office. Through the glass walls I saw her put her hand on her heart. The school pledged allegiance.

Some latecomers arrived. Good morning.

Ms. Parsons walked me down to meet Ms. Collins, who taught fourth grade. “One of the teachers hurt her back, so she had to be out today. So it’s just been one of those times when it’s crazy.”

Ms. Collins was a short-haired, self-assured woman with a naturally loud contralto voice. She told the class to do her a favor and close their computers. “I’m going to be pulling kids out one at a time to do assessments,” she said to me. “I’ll grab one, and then I’ll send them back to get another student, and we’ll do it like that.”

She turned to the class. “So, boys and girls, what you are going to do with—” She turned and asked my name. “With Mr. Baker — that’s easy! — to warm up, is you can play Around the World. You can go around two times.” After that they were to work on their targets. “If you have papers that you’re working on, you need to complete those before you start getting new ones. If you’re all caught up, you can get another piece of evidence to work on, or you can go on IXL. We’re not doing MobyMax today. Let’s show Mr. Baker that we are good listeners. I will be back at ten-ten.” A lot of kids went to mini-groups at 9:50, she told me. “I think a bell rings at nine-fifty. Kathleen, you need to finish your reading assessment, and Hannah, you need to finish your reading assessment. Marcus, I’m going to start with you.” Marcus got up and went off to take his test with Ms. Collins.

I picked up a pack of Around the World math flashcards and the kids stood at their desks. “All right, guys, I’m Mr. Baker, and I think we need to do a little Around the World kind of thing.” I held a card up.

“You have to flip it the other way,” said Crystal, who had a side-scrunch of black hair.

“Tell me how to do it,” I said.

“You turn the whole thing around, like this, so they can’t see the answer,” said Crystal. “You have to surprise us, too.”

“And if you talk you get disqualified!” said Grant.

An ed tech — fifties, hoarse, toothy — came in and sat down. “You know what the trick is?” she said. “Keep it on the pile, because they can see through the cards.” Her name was Mrs. Vaughn. She came over and picked up the pack.

“Why don’t you do one,” I said, “so I can see your technique.”

Mrs. Vaughn began going through the pack. She took the game seriously. “Some of these cards are mixed up,” she said. “Are you ready? Hope, you ready?”

“Are you all loose?” I said.

Mrs. Vaughn held up 8 x 3.

“Twenty-four!” said Hope.

Mrs. Vaughn held up an 8 x 7.

“Fifty-six!” said Joanna.

“Wow,” I said. Mrs. Vaughn gave me the cards. “And — bidda boom!” I held up 7 x 9.

“Sixty-three!” said Elijah.

“Good,” I said. “Cool as a cucumber. Who’s next?” I held up 8 x 9.

“Seventy-two!” said Mitchell.

“Wow, you guys are fast,” I said. I flashed an 8 x 5.

“Forty-five!” said Irene.

“Forty!” said Mitchell. Irene lost; Mitchell won. Public shaming. I dislike this game, I thought.

I flashed a 9 x 4.

“Twenty-four!” said Jasper.

“Eighteen!” said Lindsay.

“Twenty-eight!” said Connie.

“Thirty-six!” said Grant.

“You got it.” How was this helping these kids learn their times tables? All it was doing was rewarding the smart kids who already knew them. For the minority who didn’t it was just another brief storm of shame. “And — whonk!” I said, flashing a card. Eight times two.

Ada and Francie said, “Sixteen,” at the same time. “Oh, a tie,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “You know what, though?” She pointed to a skinny, squirmy kid, Felix, who was bouncing in his chair and tapping his feet. “You’ve got your last warning.” He kept bouncing. “Five minutes,” said Mrs. Vaughn. Felix slumped. “When I ask you to stop and you keep doing it, that costs you time. Hannah, we need you in your seat, please.”

I did a few more. I sang a snatch of Daft Punk, “Around the World.” I flashed 4 x 0.

“Zero!” said Tina.

“That zero is powerful,” I said. “It takes over the whole situation.” Finally I got to the end of the pack. Phew, we were done.

“Usually we do it twice,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

Again? Shoot. I started at the top of the pack. Eight times ten.

“Eighty!” said Elijah.

Connie said, “Around the world in eighty days.”

“Shhh,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

“There’s a book with that title,” I said. I flashed a number upside down.

“They’re mixed up in the pile,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “Voices! Voices! Guys! You’re fourth-graders! Shh!”

“All right,” I said. “The magic — problem — is about to — arrive.” I flashed 3 x 4.

“Twelve,” said Hannah and Joanna, at the same time.

“Good,” I said.

“That was Hannah,” said a boy.

“I think it was a tie,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “Voices! I’m going to go over to ask Ms. Collins if it counts doing the same answer. But that was still a tie, because she said it first. Yours was the second right answer. So, a tie.”

“Good gosh,” I said. Who the flip cared? I flashed a 3 x 9.

Jared was silent.

“Twenty-seven,” said Hope.

“Jared!” said Mrs. Vaughn. “You should have trusted your gut on that one!”

Jared looked beaten down. I said, “Everybody has particular ones that are sort of their favorites. I know when I was in school I really liked eight times seven is fifty-six. I held on to that one. But everyone has ones that they use as islands in the midst of confusion. And here we go!” I flashed a 7 x 4.

“Twenty-eight!” said Dustin.

“Good,” I said. I flashed a 6 x 9.

“Fifty-six!” said Mitchell. “No!”

“Fifty-four,” said Ada. “That’s my favorite.”

“Nice,” I said.

“My favorite’s eleven times twelve,” said Grant.

“What is it?” I asked.

“One thirty-two,” said Grant.

“Wow, you’re up in the stratosphere.” I really wanted the game to stop now. I hated this game. “Where are we now, are we sort of in Japan? How far around the world are we?”

“I think we’re in America,” said Grant.

“We’re getting back to America? You see the California coast? Here we go!” Nine times three.

“Twenty-seven,” said Crystal.

The cards went on and on, with Mrs. Vaughn yelling and shushing. Finally it was over. I applauded the class. “Very impressive.”

“BACK TO OUR SEATS!” said Mrs. Vaughn. “SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! OKAY, GUYS, LET’S — SHHH!”

“How tall are you?” asked Joanna.

“Do you play basketball?” asked Elijah.

“CHECK IF YOUR NAME IS ON THE BOARD,” said Mrs. Vaughn, “JASPER, I SEE YOUR NAME IN A COUPLE PLACES.”

Shouting. Uproar. Jasper looked very unhappy.

I raised my hands. “Okay, guys, take it down. Way down. HEY! ALL the way down, please.” They went quiet. “We’re going to have an orderly transition here. Mrs. Vaughn is—”

“Gettin’ sharp!” said Elijah, and laughed.

“—very authoritative,” I muttered, out of earshot of her.

Mrs. Vaughn kept pacing around. “Mitchell, Lindsay, Jared, I want you to get started. Hope, I want you to sign on to IXL, on B-1! Hannah, at your seat! Fourth-graders! If I don’t see everybody working within the next minute, you will be doing it at recess! Irene, I want papers. Work on your papers in your math folder. Tina, what are you working on? You have a division paper, don’t you? You finished your division paper the other day — why don’t you get another one for your target? Dustin and Mitchell, you’ve got FIVE SECONDS, and then you’re on the recess list!”

Jasper was grimacing and crying because he’d already lost some recess.

“Jasper, I told you I’d take it back if you sat in your seat!”

“I am in my seat,” Jasper said. “But you said I owed ten now!”

“No, you weren’t listening,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “I said, Go to your seat, and I will take the second five back. So you only owe me five, from earlier.”

“What did I do earlier?”

“You were talking,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

“I wasn’t talking!” said Jasper.

“All right, stop, do your work.”

I asked Mrs. Vaughn how long they were supposed to be doing work. “I’m happy to do something that’s a little more fun for them,” I whispered, “but I don’t want to transgress.”

Mrs. Vaughn said, “Why don’t we give them a good ten minutes? I know when I used to sub I used to like to do different things.” She resumed her high-volume policing. “Alex! What are you working on? You need a piece of evidence to pass in. I want you on IXL B-1.”

“I have something else to do,” said Alex.

“Then why don’t you have a paper? Dustin, I want to see you working! Elijah, you’ve got your paper from the other day? I’m coming around, I want to see everybody working on something.”

I whisper-worked with Lindsay on a division problem. Marcus returned from his reading test, and Kathleen left for hers.

“Trust your brain!” Mrs. Vaughn said at full volume. “Marcus, what’s up! JASPER! You haven’t done any work yet? Okay, girls!” She moved Tina and Connie away from each other.

A boy brought up a math paper to me. “That looks complicated,” I whispered.

“OKAY, FOURTH-GRADERS!” Mrs. Vaughn said. “Before we go any further! Just because there is a sub in the room doesn’t mean there are THREE BOYS in the bathroom at the same time. It doesn’t mean there’s more than one girl in the bathroom at the same time. You know you sign out, and if somebody’s signed out, you stay here. Mitchell, did you sign out?”

“No.”

“Then you owe me ten minutes. Alex, you owe me ten minutes. Dustin, did you sign out?”

Dustin nodded.

“Have a seat and get to work, then. And Alex, you will be doing work at recess if I don’t see these problems done. What did I just say? Sit. Hey, smarty-pants, sit. Jasper! You’re going to owe me more time!” Mrs. Vaughn was on a rampage, and the day had hardly begun.

I took a tiny chair next to Dustin, who was working on a page of geometry. He had to circle the shapes that were regular polygons, and then he had to write the definition of various words. “What’s this one mean?” he asked.

“Dodecagon,” I read. “It’s a decagon plus two. What’s a decagon, do you remember?”

“I remember,” said Grant, next to him. “It’s ten sides.”

“Right,” I said. “How many sides does a dodo have? I know, that’s an impossible question. But anything that sounds like a dodo usually has twelve sides. I think. I may be wrong.”

“No, you’re right,” said Dustin.

He went on to the next problem, a five-sided regular shape. I held up my hand, fingers splayed. “Pent is five. You know the Pentagon, in Washington, where all the generals plan wars? It’s a building they deliberately built with five sides.”

I went over to Irene, who was fuming at her computer. “I can’t get onto my Educate, so I don’t know what to work on.” Her password was flower904 and it was being refused. I tried it for her, checking that caps lock wasn’t on. Login failed.

“ALL RIGHT, GUYS,” interrupted Mrs. Vaughn. “We have ten minutes before mini-groups. Mr. Baker would like to do something!”

I said, “I don’t want to cramp your style…”

“No, that’s fine,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “Felix needs to still work. Ada can still work.”

“Let’s just keep going until everybody’s happy,” I said.

“WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE PUT THEIR MOUTH AWAY,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “Felix, you can finish yours at recess, because you owe me some time.”

I asked Mrs. Vaughn if Ms. Collins ever read to the class. I’d found a world history factbook with a chapter in it about the industrial revolution. “During this time, no,” she said. “But if it’s interesting for them, that’s fine. There’s probably a lot of good things in there.”

“I want to keep on doing math,” said Grant.

“You can keep on doing math,” I said. “I just thought I might read.”

“You’re very tall,” said Elijah.

“So are you, my gosh,” I said. “You’ve got nice sneakers, too.”

Mrs. Vaughn pointed. “JARED, I NEED YOU AT YOUR SEAT. CRYSTAL, I NEED YOU AT YOUR SEAT. Mr. Baker is going to break things up a little bit.”

I said, “Anyone who is still working on math, just keep going. Have you all read the Magic Tree House series?”

Yes!

“My gosh, you’re way ahead of me. We could talk about something in world history.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, world history,” said Mitchell.

“VOICES!” shouted Mrs. Vaughn. “VOICES NEED TO BE OFF!”

“Can we take a vote?” said Lindsay.

“No,” Mrs. Vaughn said.

“Well, a sort of informal vote,” I said. “Do you guys know when women in this country got the vote? They weren’t allowed to vote, right?”

Mrs. Vaughn pointed at a fidgeter. “NO, YOU’RE NOT DOING THAT. GUYS, YOU’RE NOT BEING VERY RESPECTFUL—”

Here I cut her off. “It’s fine,” I said. “Mrs. Vaughn, it’s honestly just fine. It doesn’t have to be pin-droppingly silent. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Okay,” she said.

“They’re very nice kids,” I said, “and I’m perfectly happy.”

Mrs. Vaughn couldn’t stop. “Jared, sit down right now!”

I told them about how an injection-molding machine worked, that it melted little plastic particles that came down in a tube and used a huge screw to squash the molten plastic into a mold. I told them about China, where they invented gunpowder. I showed them a picture of a steam engine and talked about pistons and expanding gases and paddlewheels. “Think of a world in which something doesn’t exist,” I said, “and one guy thinks, I want to build that. That’s an amazing ability.” Were there other inventions that they particularly admired? What did they use every day that they really liked?

“Basketball hoop,” said Joanna. “We learned about it in my old school. The man didn’t like that people were too pushy and stuff, so he made up a new game.” We talked about basketball and volleyball for a while. The class was remarkably quiet. Mrs. Vaughn left to visit some other room. I asked the class for more inventions.

“Glasses?” said a girl, Francie, who wore glasses.

“Glasses! Now, that is an invention. How do you think they figured out that if you looked through glass, it would actually make you see better?”

“Telescopes, maybe, I don’t know,” Francie said. She began looking up the history of eyeglasses on her computer.

A specialist arrived to take Marcus and Felix to reading enrichment.

Jasper said, “Something else that was invented was the iPhone Five!” We talked about iPhones and Steve Jobs. I showed them the cracks in my iPhone 4s. “It still works perfectly,” I said. “Now, that is a good machine.”

“Steve Jobs had died by the time of the iPhone Five,” said Grant.

“But he still lives on,” said Jasper.

“Is this one invention?” I asked them, holding up my injured phone.

No, said the class.

“There are dozens of inventions in here,” I said. “There’s a camera, there’s a radio transmitter, there’s a screen.”

“I know who was the first person who wore spectacles,” said Francie. “It was an ancient queen.”

The watch was another great invention, said Dustin. Elijah raised his hand and described Foucault’s pendulum. “It proves that the Earth does spin. Every hour it knocks a pin down.”

Ada described a sundial. “They would have this round thing in the garden. From the way the shadows would reflect on it they would tell the time.”

We talked about hourglasses, measuring time by sifting sand. “Or they could burn a candle,” I said. “And you can measure years of time if you just look at a tree grow.”

Grant explained the counting of tree rings. “If you cut down the tree,” he said, “and you count how many rings, that’s how many years it has lived.”

I said, “Why do you think there are rings in a tree? Anyone know?” I pointed at Irene. “Do you know?”

“No,” said Irene.

“Because some parts of the year are cold,” I said, “and the tree is hibernating, waiting for things to warm up, and some parts of the year are warm and it’s growing like mad.”

“Every year grows a new layer?” said Irene.

“It’s growing a new layer,” I said. “In the cold months the wood has a different kind of look than in the warm months.” I told them what I knew about the dating of old wood using dendrochronology. “So that’s another way to measure time. Okay. Are we done?” I was running out of steam. Ms. Collins still hadn’t returned. “No.”

Jared raised his hand. “One invention is the electric sharpener.”

“Electric pencil sharpeners — yes!”

“We have one in class,” said Francie.

“There’s a little man inside of it with a chain saw,” said Jasper.

“It wastes electricity,” said Francie.

“Do you like the fact that electric pencil sharpeners make a lot of noise?” I asked.

“No.”

“I think there’s a little mouse in there, munching,” said Tina.

We took the top off the mechanical sharpener and talked about the grinding gears inside. We talked about can openers. “What’s another favorite invention?” I asked.

Connie said, “How about mirrors? When were mirrors invented?”

“Great invention!” I said.

“Charles Henry Gould invented the stapler,” Elijah called out.

“Good research,” I said. “Who invented the mirror?”

“I’ll research that up!” said Grant.

“Me, too!” said Connie.

“Research it up,” I said.

While they were doing that, I tried to write “Charles Henry Gould” on the whiteboard, but it was a fancy electronic whiteboard.

“You have to turn it on,” said Tina. “Jasper! How do you turn it on?”

“I’m your technogeek,” said Jasper, leaping up.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” called Grant, one of the mirror researchers. “It’s a person named Justus von Liebig. A German chemist. He created the modern mirror.” Grant rapidly read a paragraph of an article from LiveScience: “In the first century AD, the Roman author Pliny the Elder alludes to the first recorded use of glass mirrors in his encyclopedia Natural History, but the mirrors apparently never came into general use at the time.” Connie, who’d originally asked the mirror question, brought up her computer to show me the article.

“Good,” I said.

“SmartBoards are a good invention,” said Jared.

“These SmartBoards are awesome,” said Jasper. “You plug it into your computer and into the projector, and when it comes on you just calibrate it with one of these markers, with your finger, and then whenever you press this down, you can draw green, and when you don’t want it anymore, you use the eraser and wipe it off, because there’s a sensor inside of it, and there’s a sensor inside of the eraser.” Jasper was clever — what was he doing getting yelled at by Mrs. Vaughn and sitting out recess?

“I know who invented the lock!” said Elijah. “The lock is James Sargent.”

“Soccer was invented in China,” said Grant.

“Someone invented school,” said Jasper.

“Ah,” I said. “Who invented school, and WHY?”

“I’m looking for who invented homework,” said Jared. “I’m mad at him.”

“Whoever did that is bad,” said Tina.

Ms. Collins arrived with a handful of papers. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess her clock was five minutes slow. Was it okay?”

“It was fine,” I said, “we’ve just been talking about inventions.”

“We were learning about world history,” said Grant.

“Good,” Ms. Collins said.

“They did some of their actual work,” I said, “and then Mrs. Vaughn was getting mad at them for not being respectful, and I said, I’m just fine — and then, I don’t know.”

“Perfect,” said Ms. Collins.

“They’re very good with the math facts,” I said.

“I drill them daily on math facts,” Ms. Collins said. “I get you again in the afternoon.” She turned to the class. “Have a seat, please! Let’s log off the computers!”

—

I WALKED TO ROOM 2, Mrs. Wells’s class of second-graders.

“Hi!” said the class.

“Class,” said Mrs. Wells, “transition.” She was in her fifties and expensively dressed. She intoned a two-note chant, “Class-class,” and she touched a set of windchimes with her fingertips. “On three we should be looking at me. One, two, three. Thank you. All right, friends. Mr. Baker is a sub who’s in our building today. I need to finish a little bit of testing, so he’s here to help out for a little while. So here is what’s going to happen. I said we would have a brain break, which we will. After the brain break, we’ll get started with our reading today. And we’ll go from there.”

She had her computer hooked up to the projector, and she waited for the image to come on. “Thank you, Green Table, for waiting patiently and quietly,” she said. “I am noticing that.”

I said hello to Mrs. Colette, another ed tech. Mrs. Wells logged on to a brain break website called GoNoodle.

“Who’s my helper today? Faith. You get to pick. Look up there.” She pointed to some goggle-eyed cartoon figures. “Do you want Freckles Sinclair? Do we want to go with Weevil LaBeevil again? Do we want to go to Zapp von Doubler? Oogles Fitzlemon or McPufferson? Tiny O’Flexem, Rad Chad, Flappy Tuckler, Tangy Bodangy, or Squatchy Berger?” Faith picked Squatchy Berger. A music video came on — an inspiring tearjerker of a song by Sara Bareilles called “Brave.” One of the people in the video was an exuberant black kid who danced in a library with easy, beautiful moves — but because the kid was fat the class laughed uproariously every time he appeared. “I wanna see you be brave,” sang Sara Bareilles, in the chorus. Over the song, Mrs. Wells told me what I should be helping the class with. “We’ve been working on biographies,” she said. “So while I’m testing if you could just walk around and have them read a little bit of their biography to you. Maybe they can just talk to you about why their person became famous, or just anything they can tell you about their biography.” More hysterical laughter at the fat black kid.

When the song was over, Mrs. Wells said, “Okay, friends, have a seat, please. I was just curious. I wasn’t quite sure what was so funny about this video.”

“The fat guy!” said Carla.

“That’s not nice!” said Melody.

“That’s rude!” said Terry.

“Eyes on me, please,” Mrs. Wells said. “What I took away from the video was words about how to get your brave on. I like the fact that no matter what size or shape anyone was, they felt really confident to go out there and dance. And I know that if I were a person who was going out to dance, and I thought I was doing a good job, and people were laughing, that would probably make me sad. Next time we watch this video, I want you to look at it with new eyes, and the eyes I would like you to look at it with is, Wow, this is amazing that someone is out there and being confident about who they are. No matter what obstacles they might have. Maybe they aren’t your typical-looking dancer that you would see on TV, but they’re feeling good about who they are. Okay, friends, that’s enough of a lecture.”

I walked toward the front of the class and hit my head on the windchime. I muffled it with my hand.

“Now listen carefully to my words, please,” Mrs. Wells continued. “On two. One, two. Blue Table. We are going to read for the first half hour. Just stop for now, Kevin, because listening doesn’t mean moving a table. Thank you. Friends. I have asked Mr. Baker, when he comes around to read with any of you, he is going to talk to you about your biography. He is going to learn about your historical person. You’re going to tell him about that person. Friends, I really notice that I have Melody’s attention, because she’s looking right at me. She’s not coloring, she’s not writing, and that to me shows me someone giving me level three with their bodies, which is cooperation. So, Green Table, go get your books and find your quiet spot. Jeremy, can you go get your book bin, I think I’m going to have Mr. Baker start with you. Red Table, go get your book bins.”

“Why is your name Baker?” asked Carla.

“Because I bake enormous cakes,” I said.

“Yellow Table, go get your book bin,” said Mrs. Wells.

Jeremy and I found a side spot. He began searching through his book bin for his book, which was about Jackie Robinson. Jeremy had a snuffly cold but was friendly and cheerful.

“So what do you know about this guy, Jackie Robinson?” I said.

“Well, he was a great man and stuff,” Jeremy said. “Because he was going to change the world. So like people could be black and play with like white teams and stuff?”

“Mm-hm,” I said. “Excellent.” He had a worksheet with four boxes to fill out. The first one was about Jackie Robinson’s childhood. He’d written: HEWSBRNINGORGA. He was born in Georgia. I couldn’t understand the rest, but Jeremy read that Robinson had moved to California. He started to write, He wanted to change the world. I said it would be great if he left a little space between words. “And just stick an r in world.”

I could hear one of the better writers reading his long biography of Jackie Robinson aloud to Mrs. Wells.

“Are you going to be here for lunch?” Jeremy asked.

I said I was.

“My mom is coming for lunch,” he said.

“Good. Just remember to leave some space between each word, so you can read it later.”

Jeremy wrote about Jackie Robinson’s mother as an influence: SHEWSAGODMOM. I got him to put another o in god, figuring that good was a useful word to know. Then he had to list two character traits “as evidence.” He wrote, HE HADTO RUNFAST. Then he wrote, YOU HAV TO FOCS ON THE BALL. While he was working on He was brave, Mrs. Wells asked me to go over to a girl, Bonnie, sitting in an armchair. Soft study-time music played in the background. Bonnie was working on a biography of Betsy Ross. I asked her why Betsy Ross wanted to sew a flag. Bonnie said, “Because George Washington wanted a flag, because a war was going on. I think it was World War II, or World War I.” She read me what she’d written. “Betsy loved to sew and she had sixteen brothers and sisters. That’s a lot.” She continued: “Betsy went to work in an apostrophe shop.”

I asked, “Do you know what an upholsterer’s shop is?”

Bonnie said, “It’s a place where they sew furniture and stuff.”

“You are good. What else have you got?”

“George Washington wanted a flag,” said Bonnie.

I asked her what she liked about the flag.

“I like the stars.”

“I like the stars, too. Thank you so much, Bonnie.”

Mrs. Wells sent me to visit Gerry, in a camo sweatshirt.

“Hey, Gerry, what’s up, man?”

“Hm?”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Gerry said. He’d been writing about Daniel Boone. “He used to not like raccoon caps, but he wears one.”

“It’s sort of a strange idea to wear a raccoon’s skin on your head,” I said.

“I wanted to buy one for five bucks at Cabela’s,” said Gerry. “But my mom wouldn’t let me, because she didn’t like raccoons.” He read from his biography: “Daniel loved the outdoors. He loved to trap and hunt. He has a grenade. Right there!” He pointed at a pouch hanging from Boone’s belt. I said I guessed that the pouch held gunpowder. (Actually it probably held shot.)

“Like black powder?” Gerry said. “My dad has a black-powder gun,” he said. He read some more of his biography. “Daniel built a road to Kentucky.” Gerry said he’d driven up a mountain with a four-wheeler. “When we went, there was a lot of car pieces up there. Pieces of a broken car.”

Gerry still lacked two “pieces of evidence” for his worksheet page on influences. Maybe Daniel’s wife was an influence, I suggested. “Doesn’t your dad help your mom and your mom help your dad?”

“A little bit,” Gerry said. “My mom never helps cut wood. It’s always me and my dad that cuts the wood.”

“And what does she do that your dad doesn’t do?”

“Cook.”

Laundry?

“He don’t do that,” said Gerry. “He don’t like being inside. He likes being outside.” He put hard working for Daniel’s character trait.

“Gerry, you’re on it, man,” I said. “Excellent.”

“Thank you.” He looked at my feet. “My dad has the same shoes, just lighter. My dad’s boots he got at Cabela’s.”

“Does he have a coonskin hat?”

“No,” Gerry said. “I have a rabbit hat. It’s the two back legs. And it has the fur.”

Mrs. Wells sent me over to Edgar, in a blue-striped shirt, who was writing about Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president. Lincoln liked the outdoors, Edgar said. Lincoln was honest and trustworthy. He’d taught himself how to read.

“Friends,” said Mrs. Wells, “I have Tamara, Theo, Adam, and Ryan not in their seat. Will you please walk to your seats?”

I asked Edgar how he’d learned to read.

“My mom taught me,” he said.

Mrs. Wells thanked me for helping, and I went to the tiny teachers’ break room to have lunch, sitting next to a blue, bulbous Dasani vending machine that hummed and heated up the room. I wrote an email, and when some teachers assembled to have their appreciation party, I went off to the cafeteria to stand guard. The noise wasn’t nearly as loud here as at Lasswell Elementary; there were maybe half as many children. Jeremy’s mother was overseeing a section of tables. I shouted that I’d learned all about Jackie Robinson from Jeremy — that he was doing good work. She said she’d gone to Buckland herself.

“You’re the president,” said the kindergarten girl from before school.

“No, you’re the president,” I said.

Another girl showed me her container of kettle corn. I admired Jasper’s sandwich. Mitchell flapped a piece of ham in the air and said his friend was a liar. Joanna needed a plastic knife and I got one for her. I made a peanut butter cracker disappear by palming it. “How did you do that?” said Jasper. I showed him how to hold up the cracker, following it with your eyes, and then when you pretended to pass it to your other hand, you secretly palmed it, while continuing to follow the now empty hand with your eyes. Three children began practicing with broken pieces of carrots and celery. Then it was time to be quiet.

“I SEE A LOT OF TALKING AND NOT A LOT OF EATING,” said one of the parents who were volunteering for Teacher Appreciation Week. “You took a lot of food from the salad bar, especially the cantaloupe. Try and eat the cantaloupe, and some of your veggies, and then go to your main dish, okay? Thank you.”

I taught several more kids how to do the magic trick, after making sure they’d eaten their cantaloupe. “It’s called the Chinese egg drop,” I said. Tina explained to me how to do a complicated card trick. A crowd of kids gathered around me, showing me their egg drop techniques. “Guys, you’ve got to sit down and finish eating,” I said.

The bell rang. I clapped. “Time to get back to class! Pack it up! Pack it up and go!”

Mrs. Wells stood by the door with her hands up. Lining up began, table by table. Mrs. Vaughn, the ed tech, said, “Alex, go back and walk. Alex! Walk over and walk back. Shhh.”

I led a line of students out the door to the playground for little-kids recess. A boy pushed a cart filled with balls along the sidewalk.

“Can I take off my coat?” asked a girl.

“Sure, take off your coat, by all means,” I said.

There was a large wooden play structure with two upper rooms.

“Can I take this off?” said a boy, shucking off his sweatshirt.

“Can I take this off?” said another boy.

A kid named Wally was playing with a truck in the sand, right in the path of a girl who was swinging on a swing. I got him to move so he wouldn’t be kicked.

“Mr. Baker,” said Edgar. “I found a sticky note, and I don’t know what it says. I just looked down, and I’m like, hm.” He led me over to the Post-it note, lying in the grass. It said, WECAN FRD 1 °CRPS. I couldn’t make it out. I asked Edgar what he thought it said. “It says, We can afford ten crops,” said Edgar. It was from a kindergarten project, he explained.

“You decoded it,” I said. “You’re a sleuth!”

A bright-eyed second-grader named Beth came up to tell me that she’d gotten her arm caught in the chain of the swings, and also she’d tried to kick the ball and she’d kicked the ground instead.

“Sounds like multiple injuries. Shall we bring in a helicopter and medevac you out?”

Beth shook her head.

Her friend said, “The chains really hurt on your arms when you get pulled back.”

I said that they’d had a rough recess. “What are you going to do now?”

“Shake it off?” said Beth. “Do the hokey pokey?” The two of them danced around and ran off.

Harrison, a first-grader in a blue jacket, came up sniffing and frowning. “No one wants to play with me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I really need to play with someone,” said Harrison.

A girl ran up and pointed at someone in the distance.

“He grabbed me by my shirt and ripped my skin,” she said.

I said, “Is it bleeding?” She shook her head and ran away.

“Can you play with me, please?” said Harrison.

I told him I could watch him hang from the pole. Harrison hung from the pole for a moment and then dropped to the ground.

“They don’t want to play with me,” said Harrison. “Everybody don’t wants to play with me. Everybody says, No, no, no.”

“That’s very frustrating,” I said. I suggested he figure out something to do by himself, and then someone else would get interested in what he was doing and join in. I gestured at the trucks in the sand, but he shook his head.

“Nobody wants to play with me,” he said. “That means nothing to do.”

“You can count all the trees,” I said. “You can count the blades of grass.”

Harrison spotted someone he knew and walked away with small, stocky steps.

Three girls had arranged a collection of dandelions on a flat rock in the shade of a tree.

“Nice,” I said.

“Gerry got hurt,” said Tamara, running over. I walked toward Gerry. He was fine.

His friend Sammy asked me for the key to go inside. He needed to go to the bathroom. I told him I didn’t have a key.

“I’ll go in my pants,” Sammy said.

“No, don’t go in your pants,” I said.

“Do it in my shirt,” said Gerry. “It’ll cool me off.”

I told him to go to one of the other teachers who had a key.

“Just go pee in the woods,” said Gerry, and laughed.

“That’s how Daniel Boone would do it,” I said.

“I know,” said Gerry. “I did that at my house. Once I did it here when I was in kindergarten!”

“You just have to sneak behind a bush,” I said. “Otherwise, maybe wait for a teacher.”

Sammy started laughing. “We ain’t supposed to do that out here.”

“Okay, well, don’t.”

Adam said, “We saw somebody peeing in the woods. A little bit ago, we saw somebody doing that.”

“I did that many a time,” said a fourth boy, Neil.

Harrison returned. “No one wants to play with me!”

A parent volunteer came up, escorting a weeping boy named Dallas. “One of the kids jumped off onto his head.”

“Oh, wow,” I said.

“So I was going to go in and get an ice pack for him.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” I said. “And this kid needs to go to the bathroom.”

“Come with me, buddy,” said the parent, taking Sammy’s hand. “We’ll go in the front entrance.”

Dallas said that his ear hurt where the other kid jumped on it. I looked at it. “It’s a little bit red,” I said. “You’re being brave about it.” He started to edge off toward the screamers at the play structure. “You think you can go back in?” I asked. Dallas nodded and ran off.

I retrieved a stray ball and watched a game of tag. A pretty, toothless girl came up holding a small yellow flower. “What kind of flower is this?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “My wife would know. It’s really pretty.” She walked away, disappointed. Darn, I wished I’d known. If I’d known the name of that flower, I would have taught something important that day.

I was asked to adjudicate a complicated dispute involving a piece of orange plastic — not a Frisbee, a sort of light flying ring — that three boys wanted. The discussion went on for several minutes, and it hinged on whether one kid had abandoned it on the grass, or whether he was still playing with it.

In the middle of binding arbitration, a boy came up and said, “That kid over there, Mike, tried to stab me and my friends.”

“Well, try not to be stabbed,” I said, “and try to be safe.”

A girl said, “A hornet’s trying to land on her! A hornet’s trying to catch her!”

The argument over the orange piece of plastic was settled and I walked to a different place in the grass. Theo ran over with two other kids and said, “Mr. Baker, Luke was grabbing me and pushing me around.”

Another boy, Matt, said, “He almost chucked me down to the floor.”

“And he’s breaking the rules right now,” said Mitchell. “No climbing up slides.”

“That’s a rule, is it?” I said. “Okay, let’s do it. Posse time.”

The four of us marched over to Luke. I said, “Are you Luke? How are you doing?” I read his T-shirt, which said KICK ME. “Listen, there’s no grabbing and there’s no climbing up the slide.”

“It was by accident!” Luke said.

I said, “Were you climbing up the slide by accident? You just lost your way, and you said, I’ll climb up the slide?”

“Yeah,” said Luke.

“He forgot,” said Faith.

“He thought it was something else,” said Matt.

“Everybody forgets on occasion,” I said. “But I just want you to know that’s not so good.”

A crowd from Mrs. Wells’s class gathered. “He was trying to stab all of us!” said another kid, Roderick.

“He was trying to kick us!” said Terry.

“I wasn’t going to,” said Luke.

“Yes, you were,” said Terry. “Show him!”

Roderick showed me his shoulder. Luke hotly denied being responsible for the red patch.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “Let’s have a happy time. Let’s do a little tap dance, come on!”

“I was on top of the monkey bars watching,” said Melody, “and Luke was shoving and hitting.”

The bell rang. All disputes ceased in a race for position in the line-up area. Balls went back into the four-wheeled ball basket.

“Can I hold the door?”

“Can I be a door holder?”

I chose some door holders.

Carla told me to count down from five to get kids to be quiet.

“I can’t find my jacket.”

A parent volunteer came up. “Come get your sweatshirts!”

I asked her if she had a key to get back in. She didn’t. “We’re stuck out here,” she said, laughing.

I took a deep breath. “ALL RIGHT, FIVE! FOUR!” The kids joined in. “THREE! TWO! ONE!”

“Zero,” said Carla.

“NOW WALK!”

We walked around the corner to the back entrance, hoping that a teacher would be there to meet us.

“Mr. Baker, are you going to be here tomorrow?” said Gerry.

“No.”

“Aw.”

The door, as it happened, was unlocked. The kids went in. I checked my schedule. I was on duty for second recess. I spun around and loped back outside, but nobody was on the playground. I heard the tweet of a bird. What the hell? I went back to the doors, which were now locked. I knocked on them but it was so loud inside that nobody heard. I knocked for a while longer and waved. A girl came and pushed open the door for me.

“I like your beard,” she said.

“Thank you.” I waited in the hallway for a while, and then it dawned on me that the second-recess children, the third- and fourth-graders, used a different exit. I went back outside. Innumerable people had already replenished the playground with confusion, screaming and swinging and being ignobly savage.

Two girls, both in white spring dresses, came skipping up and said their names were Valerie and Victoria. I said I was pleased to meet them.

“Hi, Mr. Baker!” said Tina.

“Hi, Mr. Baker!” said Jasper.

I sang some Daft Punk to myself. Then I saw a tough kid scrambling up the wide slide, crashing into people. I strode over and looked up at where he stood on the play structure, shielding my eyes from the sun. “All right, I saw it, you’re busted!” I said. “You just went the wrong direction, man.” He looked sheepish and slid down the slide. “Good, I don’t want to see that going-up business. Follow gravity. Thanks.”

A girl was panting. “Can you unfreeze me?” she asked.

“I don’t think I can,” I said.

She shouted, “Alex! Alex! Alex! No, Alex. Alex!”

A game of Hunger Games tag was in progress, which involved extreme screaming. The girls seemed to call out to the boys more than vice versa. The boys roared and windmilled their arms. At the swingset, a boy batted the girl swingers’ feet as they came into range. “I make them scream and then I hit them in the leg,” he said. I told him to stop.

Two ed techs were talking about buying a used car with eighty thousand miles on it. I kept walking, passing a second, smaller swingset, and there I saw something beautiful. Valerie and Victoria were swaying gently side to side, smiling with expressions of blissful contentment, each holding the chain of her partner’s swing so that they would stay in sync.

“That’s poetry in motion,” I said. “Very graceful!”

“Thank you,” they said.

As I walked away, one of the ed techs saw the girls and called a warning to them. They stopped swinging. When the ed tech went back to talking to her friend, Victoria and Valerie tentatively resumed their movement, making a small oval shape in the air. They were moving no more than an empty swing would move in a spring breeze. A boy who was playing tag said to the girls, “You’re not supposed to be going sideways!” He ran over to the ed techs, who were looking in the other direction, and said, “They’re going sideways.”

The ed techs, Mrs. Malone and Mrs. Hayes, turned and lumbered over to the swingset. “I asked you to stop,” Mrs. Malone said. “I’m going to put you on the wall if you don’t.” The girls stopped, but they continued to cross-hold each other’s swing chains. “Now you can let go,” said Mrs. Malone. They didn’t want to let go of the chains, so they didn’t. They loosened their grip but, for all of three seconds, they didn’t quite let go. That ticked off Mrs. Malone. “Yeah, I think you should go on the wall,” she said. “Five minutes. Five minutes!” Valerie got off the swings. Victoria, who was more stubborn, didn’t. Mrs. Malone began counting. “One.”

“But we didn’t do anything,” said Victoria.

“Go to the wall, five minutes,” said Mrs. Malone.

Victoria said, “We weren’t even going!”

“You were holding on again, that’s why I asked you to stop.”

“You said to stop going sideways, and we did!” Victoria began weeping.

“I said let go!” Mrs. Malone tried to pry Victoria’s hand from the swing’s chain.

“No you didn’t!” said Victoria, holding on. “NO YOU DIDN’T. You said stop going sideways!”

“I’m giving you a choice,” said Mrs. Malone. “Five minutes on the wall. Not a lot. But if you keep sitting here, then it’s going to end up being a lot.”

Mrs. Hayes said, “Just go to the wall instead of arguing.”

“I don’t want to go on the wall!” said Victoria, weeping bitterly, kneeling on the grass.

Why, amid the playground’s screaming and shouting and roughhousing, were these ed techs punishing the two people who were calmly and happily and nonviolently making an oval shape in the air at an otherwise empty swingset?

I walked over to them. “I think I’m partly to blame for all this,” I said — because I’d said that the girls’ swinging was poetry in motion.

“They should still follow the rule,” said Mrs. Malone.

“But then they got busted by you guys,” I said. “I just wanted to add that to the mix.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Hayes. I watched them lead Valerie and Victoria toward the cinderblock wall of the back of the school — Valerie crestfallen and silent, Victoria still defiant. “I didn’t do anything!” she kept saying, through her tears. “You said to stop swinging!” Mrs. Malone and Mrs. Hayes waited, arms crossed, while both girls sat down with their backs against the wall.

Mrs. Malone returned to where I was standing. “I just want to explain something,” she said, “because it looks like we’re being unfair and really mean. But sometimes the kids just keep back-talking and back-talking. That’s what it’s for, more than anything else. I’ve been told that they’re not supposed to be swinging sideways. We had some kids get too rough. They fall off, and there are injuries and stuff.”

“Really the riskiest thing is the play structure,” I said. “I’ve been sort of hanging around there. So you’re a teacher here?”

“I’m an ed tech, yes,” said Mrs. Malone. “This is my second year here. I was a teacher for thirty-seven years, and I retired from that and came back as an ed tech.”

“I see,” I said. “That must be an interesting new experience.”

“It is,” she said. She strode off toward the play structure. I walked to the wall, where the two girls looked up at me with desolate faces. “I’m sorry all that happened,” I said. Victoria wiped her cheeks. She was wearing a white barrette with a flower molded into it. “Thanks for being a good sport, I appreciate it,” I said. I didn’t want to make a speech criticizing the ed techs, so I just rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“Is five minutes over?” asked Valerie.

“Just about, but don’t take my word for it,” I said, “because she’s the boss.”

Back at the play structure, Mrs. Malone was helping another girl who was crying. “She said a bee went up her sleeve,” Mrs. Malone said. “Do you have any good ideas about that?”

“Is it up there?” I asked.

The girl was sobbing and panic-stricken. “Yes,” she said.

“You can feel it crawling?” said Mrs. Malone.

“No, but I know it’s in there!”

“Let’s just roll up your sleeve, okay?” I said. “You mind if I roll up your sleeve?”

I started to roll her sleeve up and the girl shuddered. “I think it stang me already,” she said.

“You’d really know,” I said. I asked her where she thought it had stung her. She pointed to her shoulder.

“I can’t really roll your sleeve up much higher,” I said, “so the best thing to do would be to go in the girls’ room, take off your shirt, and make sure it didn’t sting you. Shake out your shirt a little bit.”

“I don’t want to do that!” she said.

“I think probably it looked like it was going to go in there and then didn’t,” I said.

“Let’s go check,” said Mrs. Malone. As she walked the girl into the building, she remembered Valerie and Victoria sitting against the wall. “You can get off now,” she called. They got up and straightened their dresses.

I went back to the wiggly bridge part of the play structure, where things were crazy. A boy chased a bee saying, “Bite me, too! Bite me!” Several girls were shrieking in full primal terror mode. However, nobody was injured, and nobody was trying to injure anyone, so I angled back around to the bigger swingset. Nearby, in the shade, three girls had set up a pretend tea table on a flat rock, with rock plates. It was almost time to get ready to line up.

Mrs. Malone reappeared. She said, “I don’t think it’s up there, either — the bee. I left her with the nurse, because the nurse had to take her shirt off. I think she’s okay, but I didn’t want to take the risk.”

“Of course,” I said.

While the lines were forming, I heard Mrs. Malone giving a full account of the side-to-side-swinging incident to Victoria’s teacher. “I think she should lose fifteen minutes of recess,” Mrs. Malone said.

“Absolutely,” said the teacher.

I went back to Ms. Collins’s class. “I don’t think I have you till two-fifteen,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Must be the noonday sun.”

We looked at the schedule that the secretary had printed out.

“Oh, I thought that she had changed it,” Ms. Collins said. “One-fifteen to two-fifteen. Okay, I’m wrong. You’re right.”

“Mr. Baker! Whoo-hooo!” said Jared.

I sat down. Ms. Collins said, “We have a lot of work to get done from one-fifteen until two-fifteen, until you go to computer lab. They’re working on research projects. I keep extending the deadline. I’m not extending the deadline any further than this Friday. This is the last week we are spending on this, because I have a lot of other things I need to teach you in the next five weeks of school. This means every single one of you is going to be focused on your outlines, your rough drafts. Maybe you are revising. Some of the common mistakes — when I look at people’s work — is people are forgetting to capitalize their states, or capitalize their capitals, and knowing that you need to put commas in between your city and your state when you’re writing. Make sure you are revising for capitals at the beginning of your sentences, and punctuation marks. I’m not going to be in here, Mr. Baker’s going to be in here with you.”

“I’m happy to swap times, though,” I said, “if you’d prefer.”

“Nope, this is perfect,” said Ms. Collins. “They should be able to work independently. Some of them are done with their final copy and they’re working on taking that information and putting it into either an iMovie or a Keynote. But every single one of them should be working really hard during this time. I’m going to be pulling kids for some different reading assessments.”

“So I should bop around and see how things are going?” I said.

“Yes, but just let me know anyone who’s not using their time wisely. Thank you very much. BOYS AND GIRLS. Felix, I’m going to take you first for the assessment.”

The class was more or less quiet, so I started doing the rounds. They were writing about their favorite regions of the United States. “Do you have to type that?” I whispered to Mitchell.

He nodded.

“Good luck, man.”

I pulled a chair up next to Marcus, who had less than a line written and was not interested in doing anything. I asked him what region he’d picked to write about.

“Southwest,” Marcus said.

“Southwest, that’s fascinating! Do you like country music? No. What do you like? You don’t like substitute teachers sitting down next to you asking you questions. What do you like about the Southwest?”

“Not really anything,” said Marcus.

“It’s just that it was your assignment?”

He nodded.

“Texas is down there, Florida’s down there — no, Florida’s not down there.”

“Oklahoma,” Marcus said.

“Oklahoma. There’s a song about that.”

Irene, nearby, sang a snatch of “Oklahoma.”

I said to Marcus, “You’ve got to find something you like about the Southwest. Otherwise the world is just going to fall apart.”

Elijah stood up. “Can we turn the lights off?”

Good idea. “You know what’s in the Southwest?” I said. “The most amazing cactuses. They’re fifteen, eighteen, twenty feet high, huge spines. Saguaro cactuses. Good luck.”

I stood up and whispered, “It’s so much calmer when it’s dark, isn’t it?” The class was almost as quiet as during silent reading.

Joanna said, “Do you think I should go to the nurse?” She showed me her arm.

“It’s a bruise. It’s probably not broken. So I would say wait. If it really hurts overnight, then worry about it. But not now. I think it’s okay.”

Hope was holding a towel over her eye. She’d gotten something in it during recess. “They used eight drops in my eye and they couldn’t get it out, so they used a Q-tip.”

“I’m sorry, that sounds like a nightmare,” I whispered.

“Can I go someplace quiet?” Lindsay whispered.

I looked shocked. “You don’t think this is quiet? Find a corner.”

Back to Marcus’s Southwest.

“What was the cactus?” he asked.

My computer wasn’t logging into the network, so I drew him a saguaro cactus. Finally my Internet came on. “Check it out,” I said, pointing to a page of Google images of saguaro cactuses. “They are enormous, they live for hundreds of years.” I typed “southwest facts” into Google and got an Encylopædia Britannica article. “Do you like dry sand and lizards?” I asked.

“I like lizards,” Marcus said.

“Well, there’s definitely lizards down there,” I said. “And spicy food, too.”

I leaned toward Connie, who wasn’t doing anything, and asked her how the typing was going.

“Good,” she said.

A girl whispered, “Alex! Alex!”

Marcus handwrote, I like how they have lizards.

“Brilliant,” I said. “You are in business.”

He said, “What do you call those cactuses?”

I showed him how to spell saguaro.

He found a picture of a tiny bird that lived in the saguaro cactus. What kind was it? he asked.

“That is a funky bird,” I said.

“Funky bird?” said Marcus.

“Don’t write that down,” I said. “It’s a Gila woodpecker.” I pointed to the name on the screen, in an article titled “The Saguaro Cactus and Its Greedy Guests,” posted on Kuriositas, an educational blog. Marcus began writing Gila woodpecker, copying it letter by letter off my screen.

Jasper was doing something energetic and idle, making silence-shattering clicks of chair leg against neighboring chair leg. I pointed to his blank paper. “Let’s see this thing take shape, man!” I whisper-shouted.

“I just started my outline,” Jasper whispered back.

“Well, you’ve got to get flying,” I said. “You’ve got to really kick it up a notch!”

Back to Marcus, who’d found a different bird — a hummingbird, dipping its beak into a saguaro bloom. He wrote hummingbird. Farther down there was a photograph of an owl, and one of bats pollinating a cactus by night.

“I like it,” said Marcus.

“Kind of like a horror movie,” I said. “They’re long-nosed bats.”

“Long-nosed what?”

“They’re called long-nosed bats.”

Marcus tried to write nose. “N-O-W? For nose?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked Crystal. Of course.

I told Marcus how to spell nose. He studied a picture of a nest of paper wasps on the side of a saguaro.

“You think you’ve got enough?” I asked. “You almost do.”

“Wait, what’s that?” said Marcus, cursoring over to something on the screen.

“That’s a red-tailed hawk,” I whispered.

“Red-tailed hog?”

“Red-tailed hawk. It’s a famous Southwestern bird. H-A-W-K.”

Besides what he’d just written, he also had, Oklahoma’s capital is Oklahoma City. And he had a title: “Saddle Up.” Marcus’s basic problem was that he couldn’t read. What he was supposed to do was type what he’d handwritten into a Pages document.

“Good title,” I said. “You made some good progress.”

I sat down next to a Lindsay, who was almost finished. She was also working on the Southwest. I told her that Marcus and I had just found out about some birds that live in the saguaro cactus.

“And owls,” Lindsay said. “Yeah, I know. I know almost everything about animals.”

“Hey, she’s not the only animal geek over here,” said Grant.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked Elijah. I nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

Another ed tech came into the room, Ms. Janecki. She seemed nice.

“Can I go get a drink?” said Mitchell.

Dustin showed me his Keynote. He had three pictures of the Northwest, with fancy spiraling transitions. “Oh my gawd,” I whispered. “You’re having fun with that. Now, where’s your text?”

“I’m doing that right now,” Dustin said.

“That’s the most important part. The transitions are great, though.”

Connie was working on the Midwest. She was at a loss for something more to say.

They make cheese in the Midwest, I suggested. “Tons of cheese. More cheese than we could ever eat.”

“Ugh, I ate a lot of cheese yesterday and I felt so sick,” said Connie. “I could hardly stand up in Miss Sandoval’s class.”

“Guys, too much talking over here,” said Ms. Janecki.

The noise gradually rose as we approached the end of the hour. Grant and Elijah explained that I was supposed to pick two quiet kids to pack up the computers, but I could not pick anyone who’d asked to be picked. I picked Grant and Elijah because they’d done a good job of explaining, and hadn’t asked. There were problems with saving typed documents to the server. “Can I share something before I go?” Ada asked me.

I said, “By ‘share’ you mean tell people about it? It’s kind of chaotic right now. I don’t think anybody’s going to listen.”

Ms. Janecki waved goodbye. “Have fun,” she said.

Chairs were stacked. Random tuneless songs were sung. Connie used hand sanitizer. Alex punched somebody in the knuckle. Wrap it up, I said. Pack it up. Pack it all up. Everything packed up. Thank you so much. You’re packed up. Pack it up! You’re packed up. You’re packed up. Are you packed up? There you go! Everyone who’s packed up go on this side of the room. Are you packed up? Pack your stuff up.

Then there was an uproar because Jasper and Jared discovered two bees in the window. Bees! Bees! Are you serious? Bees! The bees were on the outside of the window, but Jasper wickedly claimed that they were on the inside and screamed. Maybe kids were more frightened of bees now because of the killer wasp scene in The Hunger Games.

“Will you not go insane?” I said to Jasper and Irene. Sit down. Sit down right here. Sit down. Sit down, sit down, if you’re all packed up, sit down.

“I need to do my job,” said Irene. “I stack chairs.”

“Go do it, then.”

She sat on top of a stack of four chairs.

“Will you get down off the chairs, my dear?”

“I’m protecting them,” said Irene.

I asked Grant what should happen now.

“We go in a circle and you can read to us from a book,” Grant said. “But it’s not usually this loud.” I riffled through the bookcase and found a book called Facing West, about the Oregon Trail.

I said, “ALL RIGHT, ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY, RIGHT NOW!”

Mitchell told me that everyone should line up to get ready for computer lab. I said, Okay, line up, line up.

Elijah said, “No, we don’t line up yet. We still have ten more minutes.”

We reached an apogee of noise and madness.

Grant said, “People think that because there’s a sub, that they won’t tell the teacher that people are yelling.”

I got mad. “OKAY, SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW,” I said. “Sit down. Right now. Sit. Everybody sit right down. Down. Down. Sit down. Sit down right now. Right here.” I snapped my finger at Jasper and pointed at the floor. “Sit down there. Sit on the rug, right now.”

Finally the din diminished. “I love this,” I said. “This is so quiet. Is everybody happy?”

Yes.

No.

“Should I read something, or should I let you talk quietly?”

Read!

“LET’S TALK!” shouted Connie.

“Don’t shout,” I said. “Why would you shout?”

“I don’t know,” Connie said.

I sat and said nothing and waited for quiet. It came.

“All right,” I said, “let’s read a paragraph at random. So this is about a guy whose throat is very dry. That’s a dramatic situation. Has anyone had a dry throat in your life?”

Me!

“Exciting stuff, eh? Had a cough? Okay, they’re on the wagon train. They’re trying to cross to Oregon in wagons, and it’s hot and they’re tired, and they’re bored. Just as we are. Are we tired?”

Yeah.

No!

Let’s have a party!

I read. “‘I’m tired,’ Becky said as they started. GUYS OVER THERE IN THE CORNER, WILL YOU SIT DOWN AND BE QUIET, PLEASE?” I waited again in my chair, looking sad. I felt sad, honestly.

“Guys, he’s trying to read,” said Hope.

“Really, just settle down, come on,” I said. “‘I’m tired,’ Becky said as they started. ‘Come on now.’ Ben took her hand. ‘Today’s walk will be easy.’ But it wasn’t. Before an hour had passed, the sun dried the soil to dust. The ironclad wheels of fifty-nine wagons crushed the dry grasses to a powder. Clouds of dust hung in the air by the time the Clarks’ wagon finally passed. ‘Carry me!’ Becky begged. Ben didn’t answer. The dust made his— What is that sound coming from your throat?”

Jasper went still.

“Thank you. The dust made his throat hurt. His chest felt tired and sore, and a tickle was teasing deep inside. ‘Don’t start coughing,’ Ben told himself. ‘Just don’t start.’”

Once again, I saw the power of fiction read aloud to bring a class of twenty Maine kids to a state of rapt, attentive silence. “The harder he coughed, the less air he got, and the more scared he was. His face felt cold, and he was getting dizzy. Air! He needed air! ‘Mama,’ he heard Becky yell, ‘Ben’s face is all white.’ Pa ran to help Ben up into the wagon.”

A hand. “Um, Ms. Collins is coming back,” said Lindsay.

“It’s two-fifteen,” said Alex. “It’s time to go.”

“We should at least line up,” said Lindsay.

I closed the book. “Okay, let’s line up.”

Everybody lined up, ready to go to computer lab.

Ms. Collins was out in the hall talking to a teacher. “I’m coming, sorry,” she said. “Ooh, it’s hot in here.”

“Just like in that story,” said Tina to me.

Ms. Collins took charge. “Guys, BEFORE WE GO, I want these chairs stacked, I want the floors cleaned up, so NOBODY should be in line. Let’s all take ownership for this room, please. Clean up, clean up. I see papers on the floor.” She dismissed me. “Thank you for your help, that’s so nice.”

“Bye, Mr. Baker,” said Jasper.

I waved and, once out in the hall, studied my schedule. Room 7 was next. As I walked away I heard Ms. Collins’s voice faintly through the door, saying, “Guys, nobody from group number one should be in line!”

How could they do it? How could these teachers spend all day saying “GUYS,” month after month? How do they have the stamina?

—

ROOM 7 WAS FULL OF FIRST-GRADERS. When I told her my name, Mrs. Lurie, the teacher, said, “He must be good at baking cookies!” They were having quiet playtime, she said, until about a quarter of three, and then they could start to pick up. “My little guy,” Mrs. Lurie said, pointing across the room. “The one with the football? Finn. Just make sure he stays focused.” She left.

“Mr. Baker, can you do magic now?” said Danica. I recognized her from the cafeteria.

I said, “Can I see what you’re doing? Are you building something with those blocks?”

“Yes,” she said, “but can we see the magic thing with the crackers now?”

“I ate them all,” I said.

“Disappear a marker,” said Sawyer.

I held the cap of the marker up and explained how to follow it with your eyes. “Then you say, And now, I’m going to hand it to you. And you do that—and then you do that.”

Whoa!

I did it for them very slowly, showing how the cap dropped in my left palm. Danica and Sawyer practiced. “How do magicians do it?” said Danica.

I said, “When magicians want to do a trick, they practice for days and days. They practice in front of a mirror until they know how to do it.” I yawned.

“Keep on doing it,” said Danica.

I said, “I don’t know if I can do it, I’m tired. I’m exhausted!”

“Do it with the whole marker,” said Danica.

That would be impossible, I said — it had to be something that the hand can cover.

“Mine can.” Danica fumbled with the marker, throwing it behind her, and held out her tiny empty hand, smiling.

“Clever,” I said. I asked Eliot how he was doing.

“Good,” said Eliot.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “I’m tired.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“Good joke,” I said.

Sawyer was going around the room demonstrating the Chinese egg drop.

I asked if Mrs. Lurie read a story sometimes.

“She already did,” said Danica. She handed me an orange wooden block. “Do it with this block.”

I made the block disappear.

“Do a magic trick with it!” she said.

“What do you mean? This is the only magic trick I know. My dad taught it to me a long time ago.”

“Leo, go to the library!” reminded a boy.

“Leo, you’ve got to go to the library,” said Danica.

I asked Leo why he had to go to the library.

“Mrs. Lurie’s testing us.”

“Have you been here all day?” Danica asked.

“Oh, man, have I been here all day,” I said. “Have you been here all day?”

“Almost all day,” said Danica.

“Everyone’s been here all day, and it is getting late,” I said. “It is time to get on the bus and go home.”

“I hope so,” said Noah.

I asked the kids who were listening what time of the day they liked best.

Noah said, “I like special.”

Danica said, “I like computer lab and recess and lunch.”

I went over to a quiet girl, Violet. “Hi! Are you doing anything fun? Can I give you this?” I made the orange block disappear.

Declan was leaning way back in his chair, almost falling but not quite. Adele, who had long black hair combed very straight, was drawing a computer on a folded sheet of paper, with the keyboard flat on the desk and hair fashions displayed on the computer screen. “That’s my computer,” she said. “I looked up hairstyles.” She’d drawn the Apple symbol on the back.

Mike and Luke, the kid from the playground with KICK ME on his shirt, were spraying each other with bullets from pretend machine guns made of plastic blocks. I asked them to make a boat, a plane, or a fishing rod. “Don’t make a gun. That just gets everybody in a tizzy.”

“I want to make a Taser,” said Luke.

I asked him not to make a Taser. “What if you made a…”

“Purple thing?” said Mike.

“What if you made a purple thing. And after you make a purple thing, make a yellow thing.”

Danica said, “And after you make a yellow thing, make a everything thing!”

But Luke was hopping and bopping and shooting at shadows. “Dude, you are way, way too excited,” I said. “Take it down, take it down. Why are you getting wild?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said. “I was outside.”

“He just whacked me with that!” said Danica, pointing to Luke’s half-assembled Taser.

Declan, reading Luke’s T-shirt, said, “I put a sign on my shirt that said ‘Pinch Me,’ and people were starting pinching me all day.”

Sophie and Madison pulled out a big box from under a shelf. In it were loops of colored plastic that opened and clicked shut. They began making a chain out of the loops.

“You have a beard!” said Danica.

“I sure do.”

“Does it make your chin warm?”

Violet came up. “You know when you use the cube for magic? Where does the magic take the cube?”

I showed her the trick in slow motion.

“Oh.” Violet went off to practice. This magic trick was the most successful piece of teaching I’d ever done. Thank you, Dad!

“We’re making the world’s longest chain,” said Madison.

“I’m making the world’s longest number,” said Leo.

“What happened to your phone?” asked Danica.

I told her. Then I said, “Guys, in two minutes, we’re going to have to stack the chairs and whatnot.” I read aloud from a wall poster, in a rapper’s voice: “The first thing I do is always the same. I pick up my pencil and I write my name.”

“Do you see how long this is?” said Madison, holding up the multicolored chains.

I said it was a very long chain.

“It’s a necklace,” said Madison.

I said, “It’s a necklace for a very large person, with a very large neck.”

“We’re making it for our whole classroom,” said Sophie.

It became even longer, and Sawyer began helping. “This is amazing,” I said.

“Can you guys please not make it under my chair,” said Noah, who was drawing.

A secretary came on the PA system: “At this time, please make sure all computers are returned to the computer labs. Thank you.”

Time to clean up, I announced. The plastic chain was now fifteen feet long and out of control: wild laughter from Madison, because Sawyer had carried one end of it out in the hall. A scream.

“OKAY, KIDS, KIDS, RIGHT NOW,” I said. “You don’t have to take it apart. You can just carefully gather it up and put it in the box.”

I went around repeating myself. Pack it up. Clean it up. Can you clean those pieces up? Just clean them up. Thank you. Good. Let’s go, let’s clean it up. Where’s the box? Where’s the box, my friends? There’s the box! Beautiful. Sir, stray pieces. The blocks. Put that in the thing, please. Can you put that in there? Right in there. Sit down. Sit down right now. Sit down. Thank you. Will you pick that up? Thank you, sir.

I praised the sky in Noah’s drawing. Then there was stair chacking, which went well, although I was semiconscious by this point. Finn was bonkers, so I had him take a seat in a different chair. I asked him what his plans were for the rest of the day.

“Um, play video games,” said Finn.

I said, “You get a little wild sometimes, but I guess you can keep a lid on it, right? Do you know how to do that?”

He shook his head.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

Sophie squirted some Germ-X sanitizer on her hands. I followed suit. So many kids had been coughing, I was sure I was going to get sick.

“Luke needs a motor break,” said Eliot, pointing. “He’s over there.”

Mrs. Lurie came back. “How was it?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good!” She turned to the class and put her hands on her head. “OKAY, HANDS ON TOP?”

“NOW WE’LL STOP,” chanted the class.

“HANDS ON TOP?”

“NOW WE’LL STOP.”

“Let’s get the rest of the chairs stacked,” Mrs. Lurie said. “Declan, you have your glasses.” She thanked me. “I’m all set now,” she said.

“Thank you, guys,” I said.

Adele ran up. “Do you like my computer?” She showed me her finished drawing of a Google Image search of hair fashions.

“I do,” I said, “and it was nice to spend some of the day with you.”

“Can you say thank you?” said Mrs. Lurie.

“THANK YOU,” said the class.

As I closed the door I heard Mrs. Lurie say, “Finn, you’re going to owe me a tack if you don’t pick up.”

In the very warm teachers’ break room the teacher-appreciation food was still laid out. I asked if I could do anything to help clean up.

“No, but you can eat some of this food,” said a teacher. I took a brownie.

Mrs. Parsons asked me to stand out by the door to make sure the kids didn’t run when they met the buses.

The children flowed out into the sunshine.

Bye, Mr. Baker! Bye, Mr. Baker! Bye, Mr. Baker!

Mrs. Vaughn, the ed tech from the morning, was also standing outside watching for trouble. She noticed two boys who were hop-skipping toward their bus. “Michael! Felix!” she croaked. “Come on back. Felix, too. You were looking around, saying, Boy, am I going to get away with this?” Michael and Felix trudged back to the door, turned around, and again walked toward the buses. “Kathleen! Come back, and on the sidewalk!”

Bye, Mr. Baker.

Bye, have a good time! Bye! Bye!

Elijah said, “I’m going to throw up on the bus.”

I said I hoped not.

Bye, Mr. Baker!

The buses started their engines, sudden snarls of torque, one after another.

“Is that it?” I asked Mrs. Vaughn.

“Yep, that’s the end of the day,” she said.

Day Fifteen, complete.