Authors: John Pearson
Learn Me Gooder
When I first published Learn Me Good, I had no idea how successful it would be. Sure, in my daydreams, it would become an international bestseller, I’d receive multiple invitations to appear on Oprah’s show, and every house would have 2 copies (one for each bathroom). Realistically, though, I figured most of my friends and family would feel obligated to buy a copy, and anything beyond that would be gravy.
Instead, I was shocked – pleasantly so, not hit with a taser – at how many people genuinely embraced Learn Me Good, recommended it to friends and colleagues, and even clamored for a sequel. Many of these readers discovered LMG through the rise of e-readers, most notably the Kindle, to which I may owe my first-born child.
I actually started working on this sequel, Learn Me Gooder, back in 2006, right after LMG came out. I worked on it a little bit here, a little bit there, yet something always sidetracked me. School, television, then a girlfriend who became a fiancée who turned into a wife.
Finally, I buckled down and got serious in August of 2010. I figured if the world really IS going to end in 2012, and that Mayan prophecy isn’t just some time-traveler’s idea of a practical joke, I ought to have at least one more grammatically incorrect title out and available.
While I’m on the subject of the title, I knew pretty early on that I was going to go with Learn Me Gooder. Still, that didn’t stop me from considering a few Hollywood-inspired sequel subtitles. Here’s a small sampling of the list I came up with:
Learn Me Good 2: Academic Boogaloo
Learn Me Good 2: Marvin’s Revenge
Learn Me Good 2: Learn Harder
Learn Me Good 2: The Temple of Gloom
Learn Me Good 2: A Fistful of Dawdlers
Learn Me Good 2: The Fellowship of the Bling
Learn Me Good 2: The Engineer Strikes Back
Learn Me Good 2: The Math of Khan
In the end, I decided simpler was better, and Learn Me Gooder was my final answer.
Just like the first time around, Learn Me Gooder is mostly based on real experiences, but they have been embellished, fictionalized, and condensed into a single school year. All of the names have once again been changed to protect the innocent, the red-handed, and the apathetic.
Six years have passed since the events of Learn Me Good, and Jack Woodson is still sharing stories and insights through emails with his friend and former colleague Fred Bommerson, who works at Heat Pumps Unlimited, Jack’s old employer. Much like the recurring Death Star, the TAKS, or Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, still looms over Jack’s head.
One more time, I feel the need to stress that this book is a work of fiction. A few of the Amazon reviews for Learn Me Good took ME to task for the acts of Mr. Woodson. One review even began – “Appalling treatment of endangered children!”
I would ask everyone reading this to keep in mind that certain stories have been altered, supplemented, or even completely made up, and that I myself did not actually do every single thing that Jack Woodson does in the book. For instance, on page 98, where Mr. Woodson throws lemon meringue pies at the kids every time they tell him there are 365 days in a week – I never actually did that in my class.
In a similar vein, my wife, upon whom the character “Jill” is based, insisted that I state that there was not nearly so much drama during our actual courtship. Lucky for me.
Finally, I want to send big thanks out to several people. To my family and friends for helping me through this writing process and for being so supportive. To my friend and col-league Michael J. Ruiz for his contribution of the sign-off name used on the October 12 email. To Xavier Rodriguez for the use of his classroom and black board which appear on the cover, to Shawn Fernandez for taking the pictures, and to my nephew Ethan for joining me as a cover model. To Carley Barnes for cover concept ideas, and to Terry Roy for finalizing those cover ideas.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the story!
Long time no talk, buddy! Wait, I talked to you on Saturday, right? But it’s been a long time since I emailed you from my classroom! What’s that you say – I’ve NEVER emailed you from my classroom? That’s because the portable classrooms outside didn’t have Internet access, but this year – wait for it – I’m inside the main building, baby!
I’m very pleased to report that the third grade will no longer be treated like steerage on the Titanic! No more sloshing through puddles when it rains just to get to the cafeteria. No more braving the freezing cold in February during restroom breaks. No more families of raccoons living (and sometimes dying) underneath the classroom floor.
Being inside will be fantastic. But I have so much more to talk about than just the new digs. Today was the first day of the brand new school year, and it’s amazing how I still get the first-day jitters, even with seven years of experience under my belt. I got into bed at ten o’clock last night, but I know I didn’t fall asleep before two. When I DID sleep, I had dreams where I was in class but couldn’t talk. When I opened my mouth, all that came out was a bleating trumpet sound, a la Charlie Brown’s generic adult. Not a very restful night, but I was up and at the school at seven anyway, ready and raring to go.
My morning started in the moshpit of our gymnasium, where all of the students and most of their parents had been packed in like sardines, waiting for the teachers to pick up their classes. I waded in to the gym, and it occurred to me that I must not be doing things right as a teacher because every year, they send me brand new kids and tell me to start over!
As I made my way through the maddening crowd, one lady stopped me and asked, “Excuse me, are you Mr. Woodson? Do you have Lakeisha Jefferson in your class?”
I consulted my class roster, and sure enough, there she was. Upon hearing the news, Ms. Jefferson seemed pleased that I would be teaching her daughter. A little TOO pleased. After witnessing a lengthy victory dance and the fourth violent hip thrust, I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with just HOW pleased she seemed to be.
She explained, “Lakeisha can be a handful sometimes, but I think she’ll behave better for a male teacher.”
Oh, joy! That’s a theory I can’t WAIT to test!
Once I had rounded up my students and taken them to my classroom, I was able to observe a few of the other kids. I have a boy named Jacob who is only 7 years old. Typically, third graders begin the year at age 8 and turn 9 at some point. Sure, we get our fair share of retainees who turn 10 (or, in one or two instances, 11) years old in the third grade. And I’m not even counting Alhambra, who turned 16, because he was clearly at the wrong school. But Jacob will only TURN 8 this year! He’s a baby among babies! He does seem relatively bright, though.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Nestor (already 9 years old), who can barely read or write. He already has me extremely worried.
This morning, I started the kids off with the usual first day activities – partial differential equations. Just kidding, they were doing the simple little “tell me about yourself” worksheets. Favorite color, favorite movies, names of family members, etc. I noticed Nestor following a pattern. He would ask his neighbor, “What does this say?” Then he would scribble something on his paper. “What does this say?” Scribble.
I wandered over and glanced at his paper. On every line, he had written the same thing, which was not even a real word.
“What is your favorite book?”
“OGO”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“OGO”
“What is your best friend’s name?”
“OGO”
Clearly, I was not going to glean any personal information from Nestor’s entrance questionnaire. So I decided to use an alternate assessment to gauge his number sense. I gave him a blank sheet of paper and asked him to write down the numbers in order, as high as he could count. I watched as he wrote 1, 2, and 3, then I walked away to see how some of the other kids were doing. After about three minutes, Nestor raised his hand and motioned me over.
He asked, “What comes after R?”
At that moment, I experienced an ice cream headache without having actually consumed any ice cream.
As you can see, I’ve got my work cut out for me here. Nestor’s counting woes already make me think back to Hernando from a few years ago, who ALWAYS thought “catorce” came next when counting. Whenever we had a little free time, we would break out the counting cubes and practice in his native language.
“Uno, dos, tres. . . What comes next, Hernando?”
“Catorce?”
It’s possible that Bono of U2 was hanging around my portable that year and used Hernando as an inspiration for the opening to “Vertigo,” but somehow I doubt it.
There are two girls named Anna in my homeroom this year. They’re quite easy to tell apart, though. One of them is super short, and the other has an unusually deep, raspy voice. Both seem intelligent and well behaved, so I’m pleased to have both “Tiny Anna” and “Smoker Anna” in my class.
My afternoon class started the day in Mrs. Bird’s classroom (she’s my partner this year). One of her introductory activities was having the kids write their answer to the question, “How did you spend your summer?”
I looked at a random paper this afternoon, from a little girl named Betsy, and I was pleased to see that it started with, “It was fun, we went to Six Flags and Cici’s Pizza, and I got a new puppy.”
That’s so much better than if it had said, “My dad got caught trying to smuggle illegal fighting llamas into the country, so we visited him every Thursday from two to four at the Brownsville County Lockup. Also, my new puppy smells like paint thinner.”
Another girl in Mrs. Bird’s homeroom already feels comfortable enough to use a nickname in class. Her name is Gwenn, but on her papers, she wrote “Priti Prinses.” I’m assuming she means Pretty Princess. I’m also assuming that’s a self-appointed nickname.
Well hey, I think the custodians want me out of here now, so I’m going to go home and find something to eat. Say hey to the gang there at Heat Pumps Unlimited for me. Let them know that my days of sleeping till noon are over.
At least until Saturday.
Talk to you later,
Newt B Ginnings
I find it oddly kind of sweet that Larry has been looking forward to my first message, but that still doesn’t give him the right to open your email when you’re not around. Even if he IS your supervisor now. And I STILL don’t understand how that happened.
But hey, him being a bonehead transitions nicely into my first story today.
As part of the first lesson in science class, we’ve begun to explore different examples of systems. Today, we took a look at the human skeleton. The kids partnered up, and I gave each pair a skeleton puzzle. There were about twenty pieces to each skeleton, some representing individual bones and some depicting sets of bones like the ribcage. The kids used brads to connect the bones through holes in each piece.
