A (Fri)Day in the Life of a Student Teacher

My workday starts at 6:55 am when I pull into the faculty parking lot. There are pickup trucks, parked in a circle around smoke in the field behind the middle school. I later find out this is because the FFA smokes meat for a fundraiser every year.

    It’s dark and quiet as I get ready for my day. When the students come in, all hell breaks loose. I try to greet each one by name but get  lost as the begin to make their demands: Can I go to the bathroom? Do I have ice cream money? When is lunch?

    Luke (all names are pseudonym) comes in hot. He is hard to redirect away from the window, but we can’t just let him watch the busses all day. He throws himself on the floor in the fetal position and begins screaming bloody murder. I have to get someone to watch my class so that I can pick him up by his armpits and get him out of the room so he can calm down. This happened the day before, too. And after I removed him, another student, Ethan (who himself often must be removed from our classroom for his own safety and ours), led the class in a round of applause that Luke was gone. When I hear about this much later in the day, I am furious and still have no idea what to do about it.

    I get 10 minutes into my first lesson before an announcement tells us that the Kindergarten Letterland parade is about to start. We file into the hallway and I swallow the fact that I will not be teaching my lesson now. (The parade was a surprise to me.)

    During planning, we have a team meeting about the FBA June did on Ethan. She spent 2 weeks with us, and has observed me as a teacher more than almost any other human. I try to ask for a critique from her; I want that hard thing where someone you respect tells you something you are doing bad but then it makes you better.  I don’t think she understands me. Each time I rephrase my request for critical feedback, she reassures me that I am doing fine. I press and she says: I tried to give you feedback while I was there. And then I told the principal, and then fine, you can use me as a reference. We are both confused and too busy-stressed to have this conversation.

    Other than this, the morning is mostly uneventful. Until after lunch when Ethan kicks 2 cones in the hallway, tries to tackle his friend, and then runs screaming into the bathroom. I call for help but the admins don’t make it until after he punches 2 of our boys. Two minutes after he is escorted away, the fire alarm goes off. This is my train of thought: panic becomes what am I supposed to do again, becomes knowing relief. I know it was Ethan and thank god I was not the one with him when he pulled the alarm. Our class does some deep breathing to calm our fast-beating hearts, and Ethan does not come back for the rest of the day.

    This episode made the guidance counselor late for our lesson on good touch/ bad touch. I tune out while he is telling the kids what “lure” means. I tune back in when he says, “Who wants to play a game” as he produces a quarter. He chooses a kid who has no clue what’s going on and was also tuned out until he saw the quarter. The guidance counselor slips the quarter surreptitiously into his pocket. It takes Kevin (who has a processing disorder) a full minute to figure out what to do. He thinks he is about to win the easiest quarter of his life while I watch in horror, my mouth literally agape. The game ends right where it should, before hand enters pocket, and I tune out again until he begins cautioning the class not to get handcuffed or tied up. This is an uncomfortable, serious, unfortunately important topic for six-year olds. But this is undercut by the older man miming being tied up.

    Before recess, someone from PTO tells me our class won the membership drive and so there’s a box of allergy-free Publix popsicles in the workroom freezer. I immediately forget about this until halfway through recess. When I walk back into the smoky, bbq-smelling air of the playground, my kids greet me like a hero. I try to explain what “PTO” and “membership drive” mean but eventually give up and let them think I love them enough to feed them frozen sugar water on an already crazy day. It makes one of my quietest girls laugh out loud when I hand her a popsicle during the high arch of her swing.

    One of the other teachers on my first grade team tells me I’ve seemed so happy this week while I’ve been lead teaching. I first laugh sarcastically because I think she is picking up on the stress I’ve felt. But then I realize she’s completely right--this is the happiest I’ve been in a while. And so I relax, give my kids 5 extra minutes of recess, realize I will never be able to get the orange popsicle out of Luke’s hair as we laugh hysterically at each other’s neon-stained tongues, and I try to memorize everything I’m feeling.