Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

DAY TWENTY-FOUR. Wednesday, May 28, 2014

LASSWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, SECOND GRADE

HAMBURGER WRITING

A WEEK WENT BY, and then I was back at Lasswell Elementary to relieve Mrs. White, a second-grade teacher who’d just had her knee replaced. “Good class, but a few strong personalities,” said the sub plans. “Keep Blaze and Dorrie apart. Redirect Boyd and let him use the deadphones that are in his desk to block his ears so he can focus.” Boyd was allowed to use something called the T stool, and so was Evan: “They can share it throughout the day.” Both of them owed wall time at recess from the day before.

Blaze, a pretty, sprightly girl in a pink flowered dress, gave me her lunch money and showed me the T stool, which was shaped like a T and did not stand up by itself — the effort of staying balanced apparently helped “strong personalities” fidget less. The sub plans were four pages long and thorough. From 8:40 to 9:00, while Blaze passed out a worksheet on plural nouns, I drew smiley faces on turned-in homework. Then Tatiana led the class in the good-morning song, which went “Good morning, how are you? So glad to sing together, in any kind of weather. So glad to sing along, in song, together.”

Tatiana went to the easel to read the morning message from Mrs. White, written in red marker. It was intentionally filled with mistakes: “Good morning. it is a wonder ful wednesday please be a grate class for the sub and work hard Keep your morning werk paper at you’re desk so you can correct it in an minute. Love, Mrs. White.”

This class was full of good spellers and punctuators, and we corrected the mistakes without too much trouble, while Boyd and Evan roamed and chattered. The main problem wasn’t Boyd, though — the main problem was the loud first-grade class on the other side of the room divider. Insulated floor-to-ceiling walls between classrooms are a good thing.

From 9:10 to 9:20 we turned singular nouns into plurals, and then I read the class some of chapter 11 of Because of Winn-Dixie, about a girl named Opal and a dog named Winn-Dixie. The kids loved this book. Opal, Opal’s dad, and Winn-Dixie sit out a terrible thunderstorm on a couch, and Opal scratches Winn-Dixie behind the ears the way he likes. Suddenly Opal gets choked up because she realizes how much she loves her dad. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe. While I read it I almost got choked up.

“That was a good chapter,” I said. “How many people here — quietly — have dogs?”

We went around the class hearing who had what kind of dog. Hunter had a black Lab. Blaze’s dog’s name was Hercules. Dorrie had a German shepherd named Cara who was three. Hugh had two dogs: “Stormy’s brown and Cash is black,” he said, “and they’re both crazy. They run around drooling and they go to the bathroom in my room all the time when I accidentally forget, so it smells bad in there.” Niall had a husky named Fang and a boxer named Jumper. Megan showed a picture of her dog on her phone. Denny had a German shepherd named Daisy. Rollo had ten dogs, one of which was a Chihuahua named Boss, and he had ten cats. “One of them is Cleo, and the rest I can’t remember their names,” he said. Braden had two dogs, one named Rita and one named Topper. Archer also had two dogs. “One is a golden retriever — Great Pyrenees mix. Her name’s Tippy. And I have two cats that are sisters. One’s name is Red, which is my cat, and my mom’s cat’s name is Pawsie.” Agnes had a dog that was part a mix between a black Lab and an English springer spaniel. “She’s really crazy and we have to train her. We can’t have any cats because my dad’s allergic.” Boyd’s dad had a pit bull named Wing.

Then Blaze handed out copies of Scholastic News, which carried an article about how to survive some common “summer bummers” like jellyfish stings, poison ivy rashes, tick bites, and sunburn. Boyd threw his copy of Scholastic News on the floor, and I banished him to a spot in some blue cushions off to one side of the group. Rollo read about the importance of tucking your pants in your socks. The shiny, flimsy pages of the newsletter rattled. We read about a chemical in broccoli that may work as a sunscreen.

“You know what’s strange?” I said. “Everybody says, ‘Oh god, I hate broccoli.’ It’s delicious.”

“It’s so good!” said Megan.

“Especially in mac and cheese,” said Braden.

“I threwed it up,” said Boyd.

“TMI,” said Blaze.

It was windy and rainy out, so we had to have recess in the room. Blocks came out, and counting games, and checkerboards — all sorts of tabletop fun, most of which ended up on the floor. The room was destroyed. Hugh came up. “Me and Boyd owed five minutes on the wall from yesterday,” he said. “I’ve already been there for two minutes, and he’s been playing.”

“I want to shake your hand, sir,” I said. “Very responsible. Boyd, towards the end you owe me five, right?”

“Okay,” said Boyd.

Denny said he had nobody to play with, so we looked at a book about wolves together.

When it was time for Boyd to serve his wall punishment, I sat next to him and asked him what he liked doing on the weekend.

“I go to my dad’s,” said Boyd, “and I like to go dirt biking. I used to have a miniature bike, but it’s too big, so I have bikes about this tall now.” He held his hand at his waist.

“It must be a bit frightening to get on a bike,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s real frightening,” Boyd said. “Now I have a trail bike with a clutch and a shifter. I have a race bike, too. There’s trails down at my grampy’s shop. That’s where I ride.”

We talked about his little brother, about four-wheelers, and about how much he hated adjusting the loose seat on his pedal bike. Boyd, who had been a mad hatter up to that time, was perfectly able to have a calm conversation if he wanted to. He was not the problem — school was the problem.

“It’s time to clean up,” whispered Dorrie.

“TIME TO CLEAN UP!” I said.

“My waist hurts,” said Agnes.

At eleven o’clock they had to take a unit 8 math test. Dorrie passed out privacy folders and everyone more or less settled down. But the test was too hard. Tatiana was stumped by this question: There are three pennies in 1/5 of the pile. How many are there in the whole pile? I drew her five rows of three pennies each. She sort of got it temporarily, but others didn’t. Another baffler: How much is 1/3 of twelve pennies? I wanted to apologize to the class for these premature fraction problems. Three whiz kids could do them fine; for others it was just more fly-buzz of confusion in their heads. Second grade was too soon for this.

Agnes, who was done early, worked on an idiom assignment: draw a cartoon to illustrate “letting the cat out of the bag.” Braden read. Dorrie and Blaze squabbled. Boyd and Hugh threw pencils. I collected the math tests and then drew Dorrie and Blaze aside. “I want you each to tell each other something nice right now. I need to see kindness.”

“Dorrie, you’re my best friend,” said Blaze.

Dorrie said nothing and turned away. “Let’s hear it,” I said. “Something nice. Look at this beautiful dress Blaze is wearing. I’m going to count to three. One—”

“You look pretty today,” said Dorrie.

While I was negotiating with the two of them, the rest of the class disintegrated into a state of lawless riot. “VOICES AT ZERO!” I said. It was time to do something called “Hamburger Writing.” I waved one of the worksheets they’d filled out yesterday, taken from a website called SuperTeacherWorksheets.com. In the outlined top bun of a schematic drawing of a hamburger they were supposed to have recorded their title and main idea, which was “Memorial Day Fun,” or some such. Then came three layers — the tomato layer, the cheese layer, and the hamburger layer — each of which was meant to hold a recorded detail of their Memorial Day experience. Underneath it all was the bottom bun, in which they were to write a closing thought. Niall’s hamburger, for instance, had going to Friendship park on the tomato layer, playing with my cousins for two hours on the cheese layer, playing video games on the hamburger patty layer, and, on the bottom bun, I liked Memorial Day.

“So the top bun is going to be your main idea,” I said.

“Ugh,” said Hugh.

Now, while referring back to their “Hamburger Writing” worksheets, they had to write a rough draft of a paragraph about how much fun they’d had on Memorial Day, two days earlier. Pencils began twirling. Niall wrote, On Momoriel day me, juliun, and Aunty sarah, Went to Freindship park for one hour than we went home. Agnes wrote, My great grandfather walked in a parade because he was in the army. Then later, me and my family had a BBQ with our firends Andrew and Lisa. Rollo wrote that he’d found a baby bird in the garage. “It broked its wing,” he told me, “so I saved it.” Boyd, sitting under his desk, had figured out how to stick the cap of a pen to the tip of his tongue.

Next door, Mrs. Thurston’s class began loudly chanting, “WHEN MY HANDS ARE AT MY SIDES, AND I’M LINED UP STRAIGHT AND TALL…” It gave me a shiver when I heard it.

“It’s time for lunch,” said Tatiana.

After lunch they went to music class, where they colored in likenesses of Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. Evan’s Beethoven had red wolf eyes. At 2:05 I took them back to our classroom to write several sentences about Tatiana, the Star of the Week, in the Friends Book. Tatiana liked a TV show called Lab Rats, her favorite animal was a dog, and her favorite colors were blue and hot pink. Summer wanted to know how to spell beautiful, as in “Tatiana is beautiful.” Dorrie became crazed with boredom and jealousy and walked around the room singing to herself and rummaging in boxes and washing her hands for minutes at a time.

The sub plans said that at 2:20 the whole class was supposed to build their read-to-self stamina during something called DEAR Time. DEAR stood for “Drop Everything And Read.” I was required to time them with a stopwatch. According to a chart, the class had lasted for a full twelve DEAR minutes one day, three DEAR minutes the next day, and three DEAR minutes the day after that. I asked Solaris, who seemed smart, what I should do. “Do you think this class has got it in them to do DEAR Time?” The place looked like Grand Central Terminal.

“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to do DEAR Time,” Solaris said helpfully.

Good, let’s skip it and move on, I thought. I passed out a fresh worksheet called “The Beautiful Butterfly,” which Mrs. White had printed out from HaveFunTeaching.com. Dorrie began a lengthy hand-washing session. I said, “Dorrie, come on, you’re done, you’re done, you’re done! God dangit!”

Solaris read about butterflies, which have a thorax, an abdomen, and a nectar-sipping proboscis. “The world’s smallest butterfly,” read Blaze, “is The Blue Pygmy. It has a wingspan the size of a nickel.” Agnes read, “The lifespan of most butterflies is only twenty to forty days. Some butterflies only live for three to four days.”

I had to banish Boyd to the pillows again, whereupon he was attentive. “Check that out,” I said. “Our lives are almost a hundred years. Their lives are three days.”

“That’s so sad,” said Blaze.

Braden said, “I knew a bug that only has a lifespan of one day. It’s some kind of little yellow bug that lives in Oklahoma.”

“Centipede?” asked Blaze.

“No,” said Braden.

“How long do centipedes live?” asked Blaze.

“I actually once revived a cicada,” said Braden. “I had this beer bottle cap, and I filled it with water, and then I put the cicada in there, and I circled it with rocks. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened my eyes, it started fluttering its wings.”

Agnes said, “Male mosquitoes don’t really harm you, they just make you itch. But female mosquitoes are even worse, because when they land on you, they do the same thing as male mosquitoes, except they spit something into your skin. And then you get sick, and you could die from it.”

“Good thoughts,” I said. There were five multiple-choice questions about butterflies they had to answer. The word pygmy caused some merriment. “Not pyg me, pyg you!” said Braden.

I found a chair next to Boyd. “I appreciate it,” I said. “You sat quietly and you didn’t go wild. Let me hear you read.”

Boyd read me the first paragraph about the butterfly flawlessly, with almost no hesitation over thorax or abdomen. Together we went over his IEP log sheet. “Morning work I finished,” Boyd said. “Math test I finished. I think today was great. So you put a little star.”

“Mr. Baker, I have two pink monkeys,” said Summer.

“I’m right in the middle of a conference,” I said. “But wow.”

Summer laughed.

“The only thing is sometimes you get a little wild,” I said to Boyd. “You know that, right? Using your T stool as a weapon, that kind of thing?”

Boyd said, “It’s just that for breakfast I have Crispix and then I have something that’s loaded with a lot of sugar.” I asked him if he took any medication. He didn’t. “My brother does,” he said.

Mrs. Thurston’s head appeared at the door. She’d heard Hugh making noise in the hallway. “Next time he’ll be spending some recesses with me if he makes that much noise,” she said.

Hugh flumped in his chair.

“See, it reflects badly on me,” I said. “You’re bringing me down, you’re bringing yourself down, and you’re bringing human life down.” We laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “I know you’re rational.”

I signed Boyd’s behavior log sheet. “And then I bring this home and I have my parents sign it and I bring it back,” Boyd said.

Denny lay on the floor while Rollo poked at him. I called for chair stacking.

“Can we play Hangman?” asked Agnes.

“Well, the class is kind of out of control,” I said. “As you can see.”

She drew a scaffold on the board anyway.

A bell rang and they lined up. Tatiana walked up crying. “Mr. Baker, Hunter whacked me in the face with his backpack.”

“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” I said. “Right on your nose? I’m really sorry. Thanks for being a really nice kid in this class.”

The first-wave buses were ready. “Bye, guys.”

Megan was crying now, too. She said, “I said, ‘Are you my friend?’ and they said no.”

“They get really hyper,” said Agnes.

“Where’s my skull?” said Boyd. He found a squishy foam skull in his backpack.

Second wave. “Bye, thank you!” I said. I listened to their voices die out as they jostled bus-ward. Next door, Mrs. Thurston began sharpening pencils for tomorrow.

Blaze left me a letter, written in six colors of marker: “TO Mr: Baker From Blaze I you Mrs. Baker your the best teacher in the world!” On the easel, Agnes had written, “Mr. Baker is the nicest ever.” Below it Summer wrote, in small letters, “He sure is!”

I found a green Post-it and wrote a note for Mrs. White: “Students were great today — attentive, good-natured, and alert — aside from a few chaotic moments. Thanks for letting me fill in in your class.”

I made sure the Memorial Day paragraphs were stapled to their respective “Hamburger Writing” worksheets and stacked them neatly on Mrs. White’s desk, along with the butterfly papers, the math tests, the copies of Scholastic News, and the plural noun worksheets. I put Because of Winn-Dixie back where I’d found it, with the bookmark at the page where I’d stopped reading. My bottle of hand sanitizer was almost empty. I sat for a moment. Then I left for home.

Day Twenty-four, finito.