Homework Check - Contact Hour 1

Monday – Contact Hour 1

            “Guys, none of you have your math homework done today.  What’s up?”

            Javier’s hooded eyes flicked slowly back and forth as he said evasively, “I couldn’t get on the assignment.  Our computer’s all messed up with a virus.”

            A flush crept up Kevin’s neck.  “I didn’t know how to do it.”

            David was frantically thumbing through the zippered binder that his mother was calling his trash can.  He looked up in astonishment.  “We had homework?”

Tuesday – Contact Hour 1

            “Gentlemen.  Let’s go over your math.”

            Javier morphed into the “Godfather” - tilted head, exaggerated frown, slowly scratching his neck with the back of his fingernails.  “I’m banned from the computer at my house.”

            “If you’re banned from the computer, then you need to take your actual math book home.”

            Javier maintained character, but stopped scratching and conceded the point to me with his index finger and a slight raise of his eyebrows. 

            Kevin’s breathing deepened and became labored.  I wondered if his inhaler was close.  “I did the first one, but then my mom said it was 10 o’clock and I had to go to bed.”

            “When did you start your work?”   

            Kevin moaned softly.  “At 6:30.  Right after dinner.”

            Wrinkled papers already covered David’s desk, but he continued pulling more from his binder.  Papers fell to the floor.  I stood watching a paper earthquake in progress.  “I had it done.  I swear.  It was right here, but I can’t find it.”

Wednesday – Contact Hour 1

            I looked wearily at my charges.  “Homework?”

            A slow grin began on Javier’s face, and I knew what was coming.  “I . . .”

            I joined him in his reponse.  “. . . forgot your book.”

            Kevin smiled as he handed me two neat pages stapled together.  “I have mine done!”

            “That’s wonderful Kevin,” I said rewarding him with a big smile.  But it dropped off my face as I looked down at two pages filled with crisp, neat, adult writing.

            “Did anyone help you with your work?”

            “Yeah,” Kevin beamed.  “My dad.  He’s an engineer.”

            David’s binder lay open.  The bomb had detonated and papers covered the desk.  He held out his empty hands and sadly shook his head back and forth.

Thursday – Contact Hour 1

           

            “Homework!” I snapped.

            Javier looked up smugly as he tapped the paper on his desk with his index finger.  

            I looked down at the half page of work.  “You only did problems 1 to 3.  The assignment was for 1 to 11.”

            “We have church youth group on Wednesday night.”

            Yeah, right.

            Kevin’s head was down as he slowly shook his head back and forth.  “Dad had to work late.  Mom said she doesn’t know how to do our math.”

            David pulsed side to side as he proudly held up a piece of paper and hip-hopped, “I’m good.  I’m good.  Oh yeah.  I’m good.”

            My head began nodding in time with his shoulders as I reached for his math paper.  “This is your report from yesterday’s Science lab.”

            I could almost hear the needle on the record scratch as David stopped dancing.  “Wait. What?”  He took the paper back from me and studied it.  “This is my Science paper?  Oh man!  Did I give my math to my Science teacher yesterday?”

Friday – Contact Hour 1

            I looked out at my group.  “Anyone?”

            Three boys sat at three desks looking back at me.  Sitting neatly in the middle of each of their desks was a piece of paper filled with numbers.

            I slowed walked down the row examining their work.  Every assignment was complete.  Javier looked up with a kind smile clearly conveying great respect for his hard working teacher.  Kevin looked up with a proud smile as I noted the page filled with his own writing.  David looked up with a calm smile as I looked down on his clean, neat, wrinkle-free paper.

            Suddenly, the annoying buzz of my alarm going off woke me up, and I rolled over.  “6:00” blinked in red.  Time to get up.

           

Friday

            “You know what the bad thing about Friday is?”

            I turned and looked at Leroy, our Science teacher.  We had hall duty and were standing by the student lockers in the middle of the end of the school day chaos.  The final bell had just rung.  Kids were milling around everywhere, pulling lockers open, stuffing backpacks, and jostling each other.   

            Teachers have to stand in the halls a lot.  The theory is that if we stand among them, the kids won’t misbehave as much.

            It cuts into a lot of my time.

            It’s irritating.

            But it works.  So I stand in the hall a lot.

            “Leroy is strange,” I thought.  “There is no bad thing about Fridays.”  But he had me curious.

            “OK,” I said taking the bait.  “What’s bad about Fridays?”

            Leroy’s face was thoughtful as he continued to scan the chaos.  “We have to go two days without the kids.”

            I narrowed my eyes and stared at him, waiting for a smile, but he was dead serious.

            “Yeah,” I deadpanned, “Two whole days.”

            Leroy studied the hall while I squinted at him, waiting for the smile that never came.  Suddenly he stepped out and announced, “Listen up!  Mrs. Jones says you need to get moving.  Let’s go.  You’ll miss your buses.”

            “Hey!” I called, “I never . . . ”

            “And Mrs. Jones is an excellent teacher,” Leroy added, “So let’s obey her.”

Leroy

            “Would you like a refreshing beverage, or tasty snack?”

            I looked up waiting for the joke.  Instead I saw Leroy, our 64 year old Science teacher, holding a basket of Halloween candy bars and small pretzel snacks.  He was dead serious.

            “Uh . . . I guess I’ll take something to drink.

            He gestured towards a small refrigerator behind him.  “I have Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or Diet Coke.  Which would you like?”

            My mouth was hanging open a little bit.  I kept glancing around at the other teachers sitting at the table.  No one seemed the least bit fazed at Leroy’s behavior.  I said slowly, “Diet Coke would be good.”

            Leroy set the basket down and walked over to the fridge.  He returned with a Coke Zero.

            “I hope you find it refreshing,” he said setting the can in from of me.

            Everyone around me was busy opening up their laptops and searching through their planners getting ready for the grade level meeting.  Leroy continued around the table offering “tasty” snacks and “refreshing” beverages to everyone. 

            We were having our monthly grade level meeting in Leroy’s Science classroom.  We rotated rooms each month, and it was Leroy’s turn.  I didn’t have any students in Leroy’s classes, so this was my first time in his classroom.

            While Leroy played flight attendant to the teachers seated at the table, I looked around at his classroom.  Science posters covered almost all the walls, but an announcement on his whiteboard caught my attention.  “Authorized items for today:  textbook, spiral, pencil.”  As I logged in to my laptop, Leroy sat down in the chair next to me.

            “Authorized items?” I asked smiling at him and tilting my head towards his board.

            “Yes,” he replied solemnly.  “Students are always trying to play with unauthorized items during class.  They get a ticket if they have any unauthorized items out during classtime.”

            “Oh.” Clever idea. “What does a ticket get them?”

           

            Leroy looked at me, surprised.  “A ticket is very bad.  You don’t want to get a ticket in my class.”

            I’m a slow learner, so I continued, “Yeah, but what happens when kids get a bunch of tickets?”

            Leroy was looking at me now like I was an odd bug that had crawled on to his desk.

            “No one has ever gotten more than one ticket in my classroom,” he said firmly.  He looked around at the other teachers and primly announced, “Let’s begin our meeting.”

            I popped open my Coke Zero and took a swig. 

          Ahhh.  Refreshing!

Lunch Talk

          “It was so weird.  The girl I thought liked me when I taught her acted like I had cooties.  And this kid I swore would have keyed my car if he knew where it was parked, treated me like I was his best friend in the world.”

            Kathy, the 7^th grade social studies teacher, sat at lunch, waving her fork as she talked.  She was describing a school reunion she had attended over the weekend.  

            “The kids always called this girl, Alicia, the teacher’s pet,” Kathy continued.  “She probably was.  I remember her as a good student.  Her work was always perfect.”  Kathy wrote in the air with her fork.  “She got an ‘A’ on almost everything.  And so polite too.”

            Kathy speared a large wad of spinach, popped it in her mouth, and continued.  “I went up to her expecting a ‘Thank you Mrs. Wilson,’ but all I get is this chilly ‘How nice to see you.’  Then she turns her back on me as though I wasn’t even there.”

            Kathy stopped a minute to take a large gulp from her water bottle.  She snapped a cracker in two and said, “Then I see this guy, Adam, who I thought would be in prison by now.”

            Most of us began laughing.  We all have at least one former student we expect to see on the news some night.

            “Adam spots me from clear across the room, waves his arm over his head, and bellows out, ‘Hey Mrs. Wilson.  Remember me?’”

            “I almost turned and ran,” Kathy said biting into the cracker, “But he was plowing through everyone coming towards me.  I was getting ready to say, ‘How nice to see you,’ but Adam grabs me in a big bear hug.  He says he was so glad I was there and it wouldn’t have been a reunion without me.”

            Kathy looked down at her salad, stabbed another bite, and shook her head.  “Go figure,” she said and popped the forkful of spinach into her mouth.          

            As I walked back to my class after lunch, I kept thinking about Kathy’s story.  Which relationships with my students are real?  Which students would give me a bear hug in twenty years?