October 29, 2013 – Tuesday

17 degrees/clear/calm

Pentoga Road

It’s against school rules to post any unauthorized pictures of students, so, no pictures in today’s log.

Assuming I’m not called to teach, I’m definitely going to put the patio furniture away for the winter months. With the temperatures more resembling November than October, it’s safe to assume we won’t be lounging outside any more this year. If I don’t get it done soon, I’ll look out one of these mornings and see a foot of snow sitting atop the chairs, table, and swing. It’s time.

I survived Monday’s trial-by-fire sub job at the local elementary school and discovered two or three things:

1.     I’m not as young as I used to be

2.     My eyes aren’t worth a darn

3.     The energy level quickly runs low

4.     I can do it

5.     I’m not sure I want to do it

For certain, I’m out of classroom shape. By late afternoon, I was feeling more like the fat kid in gym class being forced to run the quarter mile than today’s modern educator.

I’ve forgotten how talkative fifth graders can be. Unless I was standing directly over the top of a few, their mouths seemed to flap nonstop. Some also had a difficult time keeping their hands to themselves.

There were a few attitudes on which we had to come to an agreement, but in the end, I taught, they learned, one was kicked out of class, three had their desks moved to the far corners of the universe, and the others, well, we had a good time and soaked up some knowledge.

I taught three sections of math, a dangerous subject for an old band director to attempt. I taught band because most music is counted in groups of four… and then I chose marching band as my specialty… two counts per measure. I figured that by only counting to two, I had a 50/50 chance of being right at any given time. My mama didn’t have no dummy. I was playing the odds.

Associative and commutative properties of multiplication aren’t my specialties, but thinking of myself as a true professional, I read the teacher’s notes, the teacher’s guide, the cover of the book, said a short prayer to St. Anthony, St. Christopher, Mother Teresa, the Pope, Martin Luther, and the ghost of Albert Einstein, and waded in. By the end of the third class of math, I’d finally discovered how to make the electronic smart board work. I’m not certain I ever figured out that associative and commutative stuff, but the electronic chalkboard was fun to play with.

We now have Smart Boards in the public school classrooms rather than the chalky type. Everything about it was smart… except the substitute teacher. With these, one uses a special electronic pen, or his finger, whichever is handiest, but it only works if the eraser is in its exact place in the tray. I conquered drawing happy faces, but never did learn how to erase… the art of circling the desired work and tapping the board to make it go away… but only if the pen is in the correct place.

Every class has its cute, quiet, and very smart little girl upon which a substitute relies. Occasionally, it’s a boy, but there seems to be more girls in this category. Quiet Girl would rather die than tell a lie, talk out loud, or get into trouble, and secretly delights in suddenly becoming one of the most important people in the world of fifth grade. Cast into her new position, she becomes the substitute teacher’s best friend. Quiet Girl can be relied on for times, places, assignments, and knows where everything is in the middle drawer of the teacher’s desk.

Thankfully, I had two Quiet Girls yesterday. Neither led me astray and in the end, I thanked them for making my job much easier.

There is always a boy or five that ensures the substitute won’t become bored. I had mine yesterday. After being told to sit down, one thought he’d kick the door open on the way back to his desk. We definitely had a man-to-boy discussion about such things and he quickly discovered we don’t do those things in my room. I don’t use the feel-good words, “Inappropriate behavior.” I’m too old and crusty for such nonsense and frankly, don't care about his self-esteem.

Other than the lame brained politicians who think they know more about education than today’s active classroom teachers, I think the words, “inappropriate behavior,” might be two of the biggest detriments in today’s educational process. I prefer to say something like, “Knock it off or we’re going to dance and I get to lead.”

A misbehaving student only asks what that means one time.

Lest you think yesterday was a zoo, it wasn’t. I had some classes that were absolute delights. My favorite was lunch. The kidlings walked single file to the cafeteria and into the loving care of the lunch lady. I returned to the room and enjoyed forty minutes of absolute quiet. I didn’t check my email, didn’t socialize, nor did I move from the desk. It was time spent sitting in the teacher’s chair resting my eyes and spirit.

My favorite academic class? That would be Language Arts… writing. We talked about conjunctions, the proper use of the words, “and, but,” and “or.” The smoke was almost flying as I had the munchkins scribbling and completing their assigned work.

It was an old, exhausted, retired, professor who dragged himself into the house last night. I was looking forward to checking my traps and worried that darkness would catch me knee deep in the middle of the swamp.

With hip boots on, I made the round of traps and just before finishing, tripped over a submerged root and found myself face down in a foot of stinky, smelly, goo. Water rushed into my boots and I was wet and smelly from head to toe. After a long and arduous day, I really wanted to come back home and have Sargie tell me everything would be okay, curl up in the fetal position, suck my thumb, and rock back and forth while reciting the days of the week. Instead, I took a hot shower, changed into my sweat clothes, let Brutus lick my face and assure me life was worth living, and graded assignments while sitting by the wood stove.

It’s currently 6:30 AM, past the prime time to be called to teach. Half of me is disappointed; the other relieved. My goal is to sub two days a week this school year.  I’m relatively certain I’ll need the other days to recover.

Sargie works early and once again, we should enjoy a nice, quiet, evening at home. I’m going to move patio furniture today, finish cleaning the garden area, and check my traps. No doubt there’ll be the mandatory grandpa nap this afternoon.

After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…