by Phillip Done
I remembered when I asked Mark why he was a mile away from his desk and he replied, “I got lost,” when Brian wrote in his science journal, “The first person to orbit the earth was a dog,” when Andrea explained that the difference between molecules and atoms is that “Molecules are small. Atoms are itsy-bitsy,” and when I pointed to the edge of the rug and said, “This is the exterior. Who knows what the center is called?” Tyler answered, “The mush pot.”
I remembered when Laura asked why a ship is a “she,” and Dylan proclaimed, “’Cause the men are on it,” when Brian was bouncing because he couldn’t wait for his birthday (it was in three months), and when I walked into class one morning grumbling that the coffee machine in the staff room was broken and a couple of minutes later Gabriella handed me a drawing of a full cup of coffee and a doughnut. With sprinkles.
I remembered when Rachel said she was tardy because her mom couldn’t get her eyelashes on, when Steven taped an Enter at Your Own Risk sign on his desk for Back to School Night, when Jill said that I was her first boy teacher, when Chloe’s mom couldn’t find a shoe box at home for a school project so she went out and bought herself a new pair of pumps, and when I asked Carolyn what she liked best about her new fifth-grade teacher and she answered, “He sticks a pencil behind his ear.”
I remembered the day I asked for a volunteer and Paige begged me to be the “bunny.” (It took me a second to figure out that she wanted to be the guinea pig.) I remembered the day I moved the hands on the plastic yellow teaching clock and asked Allison what time it was. She replied, “Happy Hour.” And I remembered when Ronny walked up to me during the last week of school and said, “Mr. Done, you could probably teach fourth grade. You’re smart enough.”
May
“Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa. Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa.”
— Charlie Brown’s teacher in Peanuts
CHANGE
I’m starting to feel like a relic. The movies I grew up with are on the Classic Movie Channel. The Speed Racer lunch pail that I carried in second grade is in a collection at the Smithsonian. One of the new hires in the district is a former student of mine. (I had her when she was seven.) Christopher just about had a heart attack when I told him that I saw Star Wars when it first came out. And out of all the valentines that my students gave me this year, there was only one Snoopy, one Spider-Man, and one Tinkerbell. All the rest were of Orlando Bloom.
Sometimes I feel like my students and I don’t speak the same language. When I said, “Wax on. Wax off,” no one got it. When I sang, “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun,” they looked at me like I was completely nuts. Recently when I was explaining to my class how kids used to clean chalk erasers by going outside and banging them together so the dust would fly all around, Danny asked, “What’s chalk?”
Once in a while I even need a translator — like the day John walked into the classroom after recess with his hair soaked and sticking straight up.
“John!” I cried. “What did you do to your hair?”
“It’s a swirlie,” he answered, proudly.
“A what?”
“A swirlie.”
I thought swirlies were what they serve at Dairy Queen.
“You don’t know what a swirlie is?” Trevor asked, shocked.
“No. What is it?”
The kids started laughing at me. I got the same response when I told them that I had never visited Club Penguin and couldn’t name all three of the Jonas Brothers.
Kevin piped up. “It’s when you stick your head in the toilet and flush it and it makes your hair look like that.” He pointed to John’s head.
This week Joshua and Robbie completely lost me.
“Jinx!” they called out at exactly the same time.
“Personal Jinx!” they cried in unison.
“Rainbow Jinx!” they announced together.
“Toilet Jinx!” they shouted. Josh was a split second faster than Robbie. Robbie stomped his foot.
I stood there dazed. “What’s Toilet Jinx?”
Josh cracked a smile. “Robbie can’t go to the bathroom or say anything until I say his name three times.”
So much has changed since I was a kid. When I was my students’ age, we turned the dial on phones, found books in the card catalog, waited a whole year to see The Sound of Music on TV, unfolded car maps to find directions, and painted typing mistakes with Liquid Paper.
We dropped the needle on the spinning record and hoped we’d hit the beginning of the song on the very first try, waited for the cassette to beep before turning the knob on the filmstrip projector, and changed the due date in the librarian’s stamp when she wasn’t looking.
Of course nothing has changed like technology. Kids TiVo their favorite television shows, text on cell phones, shuffle tunes on their iPods, ride in cars with GPS, Skype their grandparents, snap digital photos, appear on their moms’ blogs, play Nintendo Wii at their birthday parties, and have virtual food fights on the Internet. Today’s children are as familiar with Google, Yahoo!, Craigslist, Mapquest, Netflix, eBay, and Amazon as they are with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket, and Dumbo. This year, five of my third graders already have their own Facebook pages. Melanie’s ballet recital is on YouTube. And Dylan’s dog has a profile page on Dogster — a MySpace for canines. No doubt Fishter, Birdster, and Class Bunnyster will be here soon.
As one who grew up with scratchy records and watching the Emerald City on television in black and white, I feel lost in the twenty-first century. I only know what three of the twenty-seven buttons on my remote mean, would starve if the microwave didn’t have the potato setting, and drive my car around with the wrong time for half the year just so I don’t have to reset the clock when we go off Daylight Saving Time.
It’s not my fault really. When I was in teacher school, my technology class consisted of changing the bulb in the overhead, making sure the slides in the carousel weren’t upside down, and feeding film into the movie projector so it didn’t spill out all over the floor.
A bug was something you brought in from recess to show the teacher. A desktop was something you scraped dried Elmer’s glue off of with your teacher scissors. Hard drives were on Monday mornings. Viruses kept you home from school. Backups were what you called the custodian about when the toilet overflowed. Monitors cleared the boys out of the bathrooms on rainy-day recess. The mouse was something you forgot to feed. Zip was what the teacher told you to do to your jacket on a cloudy day. Windows were what you opened with a long pole. And cursors were sent to the principal’s office.
Do I worry that I’m becoming a relic? Am I concerned about becoming outdated? Not at all. Because I know that every morning when I read my students a story on the carpet, they will sit transfixed and scoot closer. And every afternoon when I set the song on the overhead projector, they will sing their hearts out. These things will never change. Good things usually don’t.
MUSEUM
In May, the third graders put on a Wax Museum. It’s like Madame Tussauds in miniature. We invite the parents. The other classes visit, too. To prepare for the day, the kids read biographies about famous men and women then write mini reports which they memorize. On the morning of the Wax Museum, the children come to school dressed up like the people they have studied and take their places all over the multi. Each third grader stands frozen until someone touches the green construction paper “button” pinned on his shoulder. When the button is pressed, the frozen figure comes to life and begins speaking. After he is finished, he refreezes until someone else walks over and starts him up again.
Among this year’s famous people were Davy Crockett, Rosa Parks, Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charles Schulz, Theodore Roosevelt, Joe DiMaggio, Annie Oakley, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and Black Beard. Black Beard was Trevor’s second choice. He really wanted to be the Hulk, but I explained that the Hulk was not quite the famous historical figure
I had in mind.
As the children performed, I made my way around the multi. Laura was dressed up as Amelia Earhart. She’d borrowed her dad’s leather jacket and wore an old swimming cap and goggles on her head. She looked more like she had swum across the Atlantic than flown over it.
Sarah was Shirley Temple. When I pressed her green button, she sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and tapped out a little routine in her black Mary Janes. Her hair was a mop of exactly twenty-three ringlets which Sarah reported when she walked into class. Chloe wanted to count them, but I said I was sure that Sarah was right.
John came as Vincent Van Gogh. He painted a canvas of sunflowers while delivering his speech. Paintbrushes stuck out of his pockets like a porcupine. His hair was spray-painted red. His left ear was covered with a bandage.
As Vincent was wrapping up his talk, I noticed a crowd of second graders gathered around Black Beard. I walked on over. One child was holding down the pirate’s green button while the others laughed. Black Beard was talking really fast like a Chipmunk.
“Okay,” I said, breaking through. “What’s going on?”
“I’m fast-forwarding him,” one of the onlookers giggled.
I turned Trevor off and shooed his audience away.
Over the next half hour I listened to Thomas Edison describe the lightbulb, Dr. Seuss read Green Eggs and Ham, Harry Houdini reveal how to break out of handcuffs, Jim Henson sing with Kermit, and Louis Armstrong play “Hot Cross Buns” on his trumpet.
One of my last stops was Abraham Lincoln (played by Brian). Lincoln sat in a chair next to Shirley Temple. He wore an old tuxedo jacket that his mom had bought at the Salvation Army Store. Dark sideburns were drawn on his cheeks with eyebrow pencil. His top hat was made out of an oatmeal box. I pressed his green button.
Slowly, Lincoln rose out of his seat. He grabbed his lapels then began reciting the Gettysburg Address. As he spoke, a parent came by and pressed Shirley’s On button. Immediately Shirley launched into “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Lincoln snapped his gaze at Shirley and cast a disapproving look. Shirley, oblivious to his stare, kept right on singing. Soon she started doing time steps on the tile floor. Lincoln spoke louder. Then Shirley started shuffling off to Buffalo right in front of the president. Her twenty-three ringlets bounced like Slinkys on her head. Well, that was it. Lincoln turned to the child star and without missing a beat declared, “Little girl, would you kindly stop singing that ridiculous song. Can’t you see I’m trying to win a war here.” Shirley stopped cold. Lincoln went right back on giving his speech.
I have always loved museums. When I was eight, I went around the house gathering up knickknacks and dishes and odd stuff and hauled it all upstairs to my bedroom. I set it out all over my bed and desk and dresser and labeled everything. After the room was ready, I invited the public in. The sign on my door said “Museum. Admission: ten cents.” My mom paid to view the exhibit. My brother would not give me a dime, so he didn’t get to see it.
The United States has a lot of odd and unusual museums. Across the country there are museums of mustard, barbed wire, Pez containers, bananas, Band-Aids, dental instruments, and squished pennies. There is even a Museum of Dirt. People send in all different kinds of dirt from around the world. Someday I’ll mail in a jar of my own. It will be labeled: “Mud Tracked in on Rainy-Day Recess.”
Actually, I’m surprised that no one has built a Teacher Museum yet. If there were one, I know just what it would look like. The lobby would be covered with first-day-of-school photos. “You’re a Grand Old Flag” would play on the speakers. Visitors would store their bags in cubbies. The tour guides would wear smocks.
The museum’s permanent collections would include the Hall of Excuse Notes, the Student of the Month Bumper Sticker Gallery, and the Confiscated Item Salon. In the Room of Records, visitors would see the smallest working pencil, the highest correcting basket, and the longest-lasting red rubber ball (three weeks). The museum would also house the world’s largest collection of bells, whistles, apples, hamster cages, and Partridge Family lunch pails.
One entire wing of the museum would be dedicated to teacher apparel. Here hundreds of sweatshirts appliquéd with teddy bears, wooden block alphabet necklaces, Christmas tree pins, and plastic spider earrings would be on display. The walls would be covered with teacher T-shirts with messages like: “Just be thankful I’m not your mother,” “Teacher by day. Deadly ninja by night,” “The dog ate my lesson plan,” and “I do not do decaf!”
In the gift shop, silhouettes traced on black construction paper, baby food jars decoupaged with tissue paper and Vano starch, and postcards of the Zaner-Blaser cursive alphabet would be available. At the museum café, visitors could choose from sloppy joes, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, fish sticks, or toasty dogs (a buttered slice of white bread lined with a slice of processed cheese, wrapped around a hot dog, held together with a toothpick then toasted). Side dishes would include Tater Tots, canned peaches, celery filled with peanut butter, fruit cocktail, and shredded carrots in green Jell-O.
THINKING
I like to teach my students a little about archaeology. It helps them develop their thinking skills. Besides, what child doesn’t enjoy solving mysteries and hunting in the dirt? I used to bury arrowheads, beads, baskets, and bones (that I bought at the butcher) in the sandbox and pretend it was an ancient Native American site. But I don’t do this anymore. I got tired of telling the kids that the Happy Meal Toys they found in the sand were not Indian artifacts.
This year I decided to try something new. I walked around the school and gathered various items out of wastebaskets. Back in my classroom I set these “artifacts” out on the round table in the corner of the room: broken crayons, pencil stubs, ink cartridges, Styrofoam cups, and lunch trays. When the kids walked in, I was wearing my white lab coat. They knew something was up. After I took roll and the attendance monitor returned from the office, I began the lesson.
“Does anyone know what an archaeologist is?” I asked.
“Like in Jurassic Park,” Dylan said.
“That’s right. Archaeologists are like detectives. They solve mysteries. Would you like to solve some mysteries today?”
“Yeah!” they cheered.
I invited them to the corner of the room where they gathered around the table — kids in front on their knees, the back row standing. Then I sat down in a chair and waited for them to quiet down.
“Now,” I began, “I want you all to pretend the year is 2100. You are digging at an archaeological site. There are no buildings here. But you believe at one time there were. You’re not sure what kind.” I pointed to the objects on the table. “You have just uncovered the objects you see in front of you. Things that you find in a dig are called artifacts. Everyone say art-i-facts.” They repeated it. I turned to Chloe.
“How many syllables?”
“Three.”
“Good.” I looked around the table. “Your job is to determine what kind of place used to be on this site.”
“That’s easy,” someone shouted.
“Not so fast,” I said. “You also have to pretend that you don’t know what these artifacts are. You’ve never seen them before. Okay?”
“Okay,” everyone answered.
First I held up two crayon stubs — one red, one blue. The wrappers were torn off. “Hmm… what do you think these could be?”
“Crayons!” Stacy said.
“Wait,” I reminded. “Remember — you don’t know what these things are.”
I inspected them closely. “Do you think they are some kind of food?”
“No!” Rebecca giggled.
I bit into one. “You’re right! Tastes awful.”
“EWWWWWW!” they cried.
I held up the crayons. “What do you notice about them?”
“They’re different colors,” Sarah observed.
“Good,” I said. “And what are they made of?”
“Wax!” someone blurted out.
“And what is wax used for?” I asked.
“Drawing!” Stacy called out.
I stroked a piece of paper with the red crayon. “You’re right!” I said, acting surprised. “So if these were meant for drawing, who might have used them?”
“Kids!” Laura answered.
“Why do you say that?” I questioned.
“Kids like to draw,” Stacy remarked.
I looked across the table. “Who thinks there were kids at this site?”
Everyone raised a hand.
“Okay,” I said with a nod. I set the crayon down and picked up the ink cartridge. I held it a few inches away from my face to study it. Most of the label was scratched off. “Now, how can we figure out what this is?”
“It has writing on it,” Sarah pointed out.
I handed it to her. “What does it say?”
“It says ink.”
“So, what might this be?” I asked.
“An ink cartridge,” John volunteered.
“Maybe so,” I responded. “But what place would have an ink cartridge?”
“A school!” Melanie deduced.
“Is that all?” I asked.
Ideas sprang up around the table.
“An office!”
“A house!”
“A store!
“Aha!” I smiled. “Now you’re thinking.” I set down the cartridge. “If you’re right and there were children here, do you think the building that was once here was a store or an office?”
“No,” several answered.
“Why?” I asked.
Stacy chimed in. “Because kids don’t go to offices.”
I prodded. “So we’re probably at… ” My voice went up as I stretched out the a.