Newbie (16 page)

“No, thank you.” I don’t have time to settle in. Ruby’s expression clouds just a bit at my response, but she quickly puts on a gentle smile, again. Oh, why not? I’m already here. “Um…maybe just that little lemon cake, though.”

Ruby hands me the cake, then pours a glass of water for herself and selects a poppy-seed muffin crusted with a sugared almond topping.

“First grade is a big responsibility, but they’re so cute, so sweet at that age, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I love it.” I realize I really do. “They say and do the funniest things.” Ruby inclines her head just a bit to encourage me to go on. “About a week ago, Marcus and David were watching the older boys playing basketball and must have noticed that they slap each other on the back when something good happened. When they came back to class, they started slapping each other’s backs. Now whenever someone does something good, they slap them on the back and say ‘good job,’ ‘way to go,’ or ‘awesome.’ They have the whole class doing it now. When someone gives the right answer, someone else slaps their back and says ‘way to go’. It’s a little disruptive, but I really like it.”

Talking with Ruby is calming. I feel a couple of nerves unkink.

“You were saying something earlier about an orange ball?”

“At lunch recess today, my students kicked an orange football over the fence. Well, I think it’s that one, right there.” I motion toward the cargo net. “And I wondered if we might have it back. We started the year with several balls, but they have popped or been lost. This was our last one. They don’t cost a lot, but I really can’t buy any more. I can’t buy anything. This has been such a mess. I was a Realtor a few months ago, but the market crashed, and I couldn’t pay my bills, so I took a job as a teacher, but it doesn’t really pay very much, and I lost my car. Well, not lost it, but they took it back, hauled it right out of the school’s parking lot, and now I walk to work—snow, rain, whatever. I forgot to make the payment. Well, I forgot I already skipped a payment, so I missed two payments. And my friend Beth—she also teaches first grade—was helping me with lessons until I got the hang of it, and she was out on bed rest, so I didn’t want to bother her, and everything is so hard. I’m afraid all the time that I can’t do this—that I’ll mess up the kids lives as much as I’ve messed up as mine.”

I stop suddenly and catch a sob before it comes out. My face is hot and my back tense. I feel like small pieces of me are breaking off, and if I don’t grab them, they’ll be gone. But there are too many to grab or hold—there are too many pieces falling at once.

Ruby pushes a button next to her chair. “That’s just how my first year of teaching felt. Oh, it’s been so long ago, you’d think I would have forgotten.” Her hand lightly pats my knee, her smile twinkling in her eyes. “But you never forget agony, do you? No, every day there were a hundred decisions to make, then unmaking them and adapting as those decisions had to be changed. The mental demands of teaching are overwhelming the first year. It sounds like you have some personal stress on top of it, too.”

Carol reappears at the door. “What can I do for you, Miss Ruby?”

“Please reach the orange football from the net.” Carol hands it down, and Ruby holds it across the table to me. My eyes fill with tears, and I hug it like a precious piece of my life.

“I chose this retirement home last June because it was next to the school. I miss it.”

She doesn’t have to say it. I can see it in her eyes and feel the longing in her voice.

“I miss the life I had teaching children, forty-two years. I don’t know how to be me without it. I miss the children, even the naughty ones. Some of them I remember best, then I taught
their
children. I miss seeing them learn and grow. But from here, I can watch them play. This window gives me just a bit of my old life—not the part I want, but a part still. Every day, I watch what I can’t have. Maybe we have that in common—we each have only a bit of the life we want.”

What
do
I want? I ponder while she takes a drink. Do I want to teach? Do I want real estate to come back? Do I just want to run away and not look back? She taps the table to get my attention.

“You can see that I have many more playground balls. I’ll make you a trade. You come to visit and tell me about school, and I’ll give you a ball each time.”

I look at the net above me. “Three balls. Each time I visit, I get three balls for my class.”

“Two.”

“Deal. See you tomorrow, Ruby.” Hugging the orange ball to my chest, I’m filled with gratitude for meeting Ruby. Though I can’t pick a single sentence where she told me teaching would get better—I would get better—that’s how I feel from having talked with her. I walk back to the school and my classroom. Maybe this is a piece I want. I sit at my desk and begin writing notes on each of my students; what they like, struggle with or who they play with. Before long the sky outside the window is dusky, and my heart is full.

Every day this week, I visit Ruby for a therapy session then I head back to my classroom for a few minutes to finish up lesson plans. Funny thing though, Ruby’s cargo net doesn’t seem at all diminished.

October 27, 2007

Newbie Blog:

Teaching Was Just My Job

Being a teacher isn’t a job—it’s a decision. I’ve spent a third of the school year thinking I was a great real estate agent working at a school. I applied for a job, accepted a job, and did a job. It wasn’t a real career or a glamorous profession with smart suits, recognition, and power lunches. Teaching was a paycheck with occasional vomiting, snotty noses, and peed pants. I hadn’t really decided I was a teacher, but today I think I am.

There are forty-some parents out there who trust me with the person they love most. What I do or fail to do is profound. I want to do it well. I will stay in this and give it my best until Christmas, then it will be a smoother transition when I leave.

Two things I’ve learned:

1.
One child matters.

2.
One year matters.

By seven this evening, Scarlet leaves with her date, and Mina goes to a movie with Stev. Liam and I have the house and the TV to ourselves. He asked me to record a soccer game with Manchester United, his favorite English Premier League team, so we can watch it together. When he arrives, he leans in to peck my cheek, but I turn my head just in time for a sweet little kiss on the lips.

We sink into the couch and turn on the game. In just a few minutes, Liam jumps up with his hands raised. “Goooooooal!” I join him. His arms come down around me, (I’m so glad he’s teaching me soccer), and he gives me a celebratory kiss (bonus!). Every now and again, Liam pauses the game to explain a call or play to me. He tells about free kicks, keepers, headers, crosses, wingers, back-heels—he even explains offsides again, and I kind of get it.

He celebrates each goal by kissing me, and it’s a high-scoring game for soccer—four goals. In fact, he over-celebrates the last goal because Manchester just scored a fourth goal in the fourth straight game. The last time they did that was a hundred years ago. Then we celebrate them winning the game—I like soccer.

“L
ow expectations and flexibility are the key words for that day. Halloween is kind of like a G-rated Mardi Gras. If you expect mayhem, you’ll be pleasantly surprised when any of your lesson plans work out, and when they don’t, you won’t be disappointed,” Beth explains.

Mr. Sam set up a runway in the gymnasium for the fashion show. At some point during the party, our classes will go do the catwalk thing to show off their costumes.

“A couple of other pointers,” she says, “Bring an extra costume. Sometimes there’s a kid who comes without one. Also, the day after Halloween is almost a waste. The kids are cranky and tired. They might be better by Friday, but don’t be surprised if they’re not. We’ll plan some of our lessons as reviews on those days so the students can ease out of the holiday.”

Before jumping into bed on Monday night, I pull out my budget again. There’s still $800 in my checking account, some from the missed car payment. I can erase the car payment from the budget, and insurance, too. Tears are on the rims of my eyes. It hurts to think of what a mess this has been. My car is gone. The down payment is gone, and Gustavo is gone. I also erase the amounts for gas and oil. Looking over my budget, I realize I should have about $400 per month extra from now on, if I’m careful.

During PE on Tuesday afternoon, we go to the gym to practice for the Halloween fashion show. All the students in the school will parade across the stage, down a catwalk, then back up on the stage again so their parents can snap photos. Each class chooses music for their part of the parade. We’re going to use
Party Like a Rock Star
by Shop Boyz (yes, the radio edit version—this is first grade.) I set my iPod to repeat this song and place it in the speakers while my students sit in the gym as if they were parents. Then I head to the stage to show them what to do.

The music blasts and I step out from the side of the stage, walking like an extreme model, my hips swinging, my hair flipping from side to side. At center stage, I strike a pose with my hands on my waist, then I walk into the gym along the runway. When I get to the end, I turn slowly, then walk back to center stage. “When you get back up here do something fun.” I start to blow kisses rapid-fire with both hands to the students on my right then on the left of the catwalk. Liam blows one back. My heart flips. Apparently, he joined our class sometime while I was mincing up the runway.

“Okay, I’m going to do it again, but I need some help.” I choose four students to join me and tell them the plan for this turn. We skip from the stage to the end of the catwalk and do two turns, then we skip back to center stage. When we turn to face the gym again, we start dancing. Finally, we skip from the stage to the hall.

“We’re next,” Liam calls out when we return to the gym, and several boys jump up with him. They walk with heavy, long strides from the stage through the runway. Back at center stage, they throw a Hulk pose toward the audience and roar, then stomp off stage. The rest of the class dissolves in laughter.

Several more groups form and take turns, walking like zombies, monkeys, Egyptians, fairies, and anything else we can make up. Liam or I go with each group so they’ll be a little more daring. By the time everyone has walked with several groups, I think we’re sufficiently silly to have fun with this tomorrow and provide some great video for future blackmail. I will definitely ask one of the moms for a copy.

Halloween morning, I pull on a red circle skirt with a black poodle near my left knee and a gold leash twisting across the front to end in the waistband. I’m wearing a white boat-necked blouse, tucked in, and a wide black belt. I pull my hair into a high ponytail and tie a red scarf around it. To finish the costume, I have bobby socks—rolled not folded—and white tennis shoes.

Before school, I dip into Beth’s classroom to see her costume. “You look amazing!” She pivots slowly, twirling a paper parasol over her shoulder. Her kimono is a bright yellow satin with a rambling peach-and-pink floral pattern. She’s wearing a purple satin floor-length skirt under and the kimono and has a wide obi in the same purple satin, sashed high above her baby bump and tied with a gold ribbon.