"I've been high, I've been low. I've been yes and I've been oh, hell no."
~ "Save Me San Francisco", Train
"Miss? Miss?"
"Yes, Oliver?" We're walking laps together at recess, trying to win an extra recess by being the class with the most laps percapita.
"I know the best taco place in town! You have to try it!"
I swear my heart skips a beat. Yes. Now this is the kind of advice I've been waiting for. "Tell me!"
"Okay, so," he stumbles over his words a little, and my excitement can barely handle it.
"It's this place I know, I go with my grandparents sometimes, it's really good." I wait patiently for the big reveal. It's like a reality show. Who would win Oliver's nomination for best taco place in town?
"It's called," the moment has come. I can't wait to know where I'm eating once that first paycheck hits.
"Taco Bell."
The whole room is chattering as I crouch to help Emilia. I'm trying to explain how to multiply five-digit numbers by ten when something catches my ear. Sharted. I'm zoomed in on Emilia. The rest of the room is background noise. Poking in, there it is again. Sharted.
"Ugh, ignore it, Lily," I tell myself. "The adult will handle it."
I'm back fully concentrated on Emilia and multiplying five-digit numbers when a panicked voice echos in the quiet spaces of my mind. "Uhh, we're the adult!"
"F*@#!" retorts my now fully-conscious-of-the-other-22-kids brain.
"Hey!" I pipe up from the floor, "Should I ever hear the word 'sharted' in my classroom?!"
Choruses of "no" greet me.
I may have gotten the potty-mouthed talk to stop, but I realize I've inhaled all the power in the room. I should have used "our classroom". I should have asked the class if they believed "sharted" to be an appropriate word choice based on our agreements and school policies. I should have given a less invasive reminder to be aware of our language and its impacts on our learning.
I'm doomed.
It's lunch time, and I feel like a spy sneaking in a call to the homeland. I have to report this morning. It's just too bizarre.
Beverley went home and told her mother that I only get ten minutes to teach them math every day. Every day, I do set a timer for ten minutes. Those ten minutes are our whole group instruction, which is followed by forty-five minutes of small group work and instruction. We also spend ten minutes on a Number Talk, five minutes on a fluency sprint, and twenty minutes on debriefing and exit tickets. Apparently it's too late to explain this to Beverley, because her mother has already spoken to the principal about how I am failing her child.
Always nice to get to the parents about anything and everything before the kids do. Lesson learned.
I tell my coach, I can't get them to stop talking. I tell her, I don't understand how they could be learning anything because they won't stop talking during instruction. She, smiling and offering me a bar of dark chocolate, offers to come watch our Number Talk. I thank her profusely. I can't wait to learn.
My coach tiptoes into the room. Resisting the urge to greet her, I keep teaching without missing a beat.
Somehow, they still detect her presence.
Everyone sits up straight. Their hands are folded in their laps. They're tracking me. Most of all, they are absolutely silent.
"This can't last," I silently confirm. They're never quiet for more than a minute.
I continue teaching. Someone offers up a wrong answer, which usually extracts outbursts from two-thirds of my scholars.
No one so much as blinks. Hands remain folded. Backs are straight. Mouths are seemingly super-glued shut.
They remain this way for ten minutes.
My coaches breezes out the door even more quietly than she came in.
The room erupts.
"THAT'S BULL!"
"Do we think 'bull' is an appropriate expression for school?" I've learned.
Choruses of "no".
"Then what can we say?"
I hesitate for only a second. "Nonsense," I offer firmly.
"THAT'S NONSENSE."
I'm not sure if that's election of my alternative or blunt rejection.
I've come home believing I've helped. I've come home literally wishing I were dead because maybe then I'd stop being useless. I've changed my phone background to a quote from Larry Bill and kept trucking.
*Names have been changed to protect students' privacy.