Learn Me Good

Learn Me Good is available in print online at Amazon.com and www.lulu.com/misterteacher
Please visit my blog at www.learnmegood.com
Copyright © 2006 by John Pearson. All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4116-6589-7

This one's for Grandpa George

Introduction

On August 23, 2001, I was laid off from the small thermal design firm in Dallas, Texas, where I had worked for almost four years. I know it was ALMOST four years, because those few weeks made the difference between three weeks of severance pay and four weeks.

Now let’s be clear on this. I was laid off — not fired. While the end result may be the same, this is a case where semantics DO matter. At least in respect to my continuing emotional well-being.

I had been one of the top guns in the division serving the telecom market, which had boomed about two years prior, causing my company to grow considerably. In early ’01, however, the market sank faster than a gold nugget in chocolate pudding.

So there I was, out on the street with no job, and only a ridiculously small baguette to placate my growing hunger. (cue the heart-rending violins.) OK, so maybe there was no baguette. As I recall, I had a fully stocked pantry back home. But still no job (I never told those violins to stop). I suddenly had plenty of time on my hands, and a life to reassess.

I had always been really good at math and science. That’s the big reason I got my engineering degrees in the first place. That, and I had heard that engineering classes were a great place to meet girls. (Thanks for NOTHING, Dad!) But while I excelled at my job for those four years — sorry, those ALMOST four years — I soon realized that it just wasn’t my passion in life.

So I decided to join the circus. No wait, that was just a bad dream I had. Rather, I decided to become an educator. I’ve always enjoyed working with kids, and I have always admired teachers. Especially that teacher in the Van Halen video — OH, HELLO!!

I took the classes, passed the tests, obtained all of the necessary certifications, and got hired at the school where I did my student teaching. (Incidentally, teaching classes ARE a great place to meet girls.)

Now I’m a teacher, and I face a whole new set of challenges. Conference calls have been replaced with parent conferences. Product testing has given way to standardized testing. Instead of business cards, I now pass out report cards. The only thing that hasn’t changed noticeably is the maturity level of the people surrounding me all day.

In the pages that follow, I share some of the experiences that I’ve had while teaching third grade math. The stories are told through a series of emails running from August 18, 2003, through May 26, 2004 — my first school year. The person on the other end of these emails is “Fred Bommerson” (not his real name), who is a buddy of mine and a former coworker at “Heat Pumps Unlimited” (not the real name of the firm).

This book was inspired by real experiences. A few details have been altered or embellished, and some of the events have been reorganized for the purpose of pacing, but very little has been made-up, in regards to the kids. Nearly everything that I write about did actually happen at some point.

No children (or animals) were harmed in the writing of this book. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath and swear they will not hurt their patients. As a math teacher, I have taken the Pythagorean Oath, and part of that entails keeping my kids’ identities safe. All of the names have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the marginally involved.

Date: Monday, August 18, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Opening Ceremonies
Hey Fred,

School is in session! No doubt, everyone will be pleased to learn that I am finally once again among the gainfully employed. And now that my first day as a teacher is done, I can officially send a status report to the Duke Alumni office for them to put in their next magazine. It will read as follows:

Jack M. Woodson (Duke engineering, class of ’95) is currently living and working in Dallas, TX. He has forty children, and all of them have different mothers.

I know what you’re thinking — FORTY KIDS???!?? How do you have room for them all? And do you get paid on a per-child basis? Well, no. Let me explain the system to you. I teach two classes. Here in the Dallas Independent School District (motto: We hire our teachers in mid-August!), we partner teach. I teach math and science, while my partner teaches reading and social studies. So no, since I don’t teach language arts, we will not be reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Shining in class. It’s a shame, but sacrifices have to be made. However, mathematics-inspired books such as Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (with its valuable, realworld lessons on subtraction) are fair game.

Back to the system. I have a homeroom with eighteen kids. Each day, I will do my best to mold them into respectable citizens, learned scholars, and all-around math nerds from the time the bell rings until approximately 10:30. At that time, my partner and I will exchange classes, and I will repeat the morning’s work with her class. She, in turn, will spend the day instructing both classes on the ways of the written word.

My partner’s homeroom has seventeen kids in it right now. Eighteen and seventeen don’t quite add up to forty, I know, but I’ve used a little trick we in the third grade like to call “estimation.” It’s akin to what Larry does on his timecard. Work for thirty-five minutes, log an hour. Be sure to tell him hi for me.

I’m lucky to have a really cool partner. Her name is Kelly Swanson, and though she’s taught before, this is her first year in the third grade. She taught second grade previously, and from what I hear, she’s a great teacher. Her husband, Frank, had been in her third grade position last year, but this year he’s teaching first grade. They both seem like my kind of people. At least neither has any readily apparent ear fungus or reptilian traits, which, as you know, can be so distracting when meeting someone for the first time.

There are seven third-grade classes here; it’s a rather large school. As such, my section of the grade is 3E and Kelly’s (my other class) is 3F. I am the only man on the team. No, before you ask, they’re all spoken for. It’s a pretty good team, I think. Because of the odd number, there is one self-contained class (no partner), but the rest of us are paired up. This means there is a math subset of the team, which is really quite a blessing because we can plan our lessons together. I’ll be working with Mrs. Bird and Mrs. Fitzgerald, who have both been teaching for a number of years. It’s always good to have someone with experience showing you the way, right? Wait, wasn’t Tom Winter your mentor when you started? Oops. Sorry.

Ok, now that I’ve given you enough generic information, let’s get to a few things that happened on my first day. After a restless night, I arrived at the school at 6:45. This will NOT be a daily recurrence. Even though the district's “summer dress code” allows for golf shirts, I opted to dress very professionally and wear a long-sleeve shirt and tie. I figured I ought to make a good impression on the first day. So no hockey mask or red tights.

Shortly before school started, I saw a couple of kids that I recognized from my class lists. Carlos in 3E and Juan in 3F are best friends, and they were waiting with Juan’s mother. Juan’s brother was in the fourth-grade class I student-taught last year, and his mother was hoping that I would be Juan’s teacher as well. She speaks limited English, and Juan is the shy type, so Carlos translated for her. She was upset because Juan was not going to be in my class; he was in “Miss Kelly’s” class. I explained to her, through Carlos, the partner teach system and how Juan wasn’t in my homeroom, but that he would still be in my class. Hopefully Juan will be more motivated than his brother, whose greatest feat last year was crafting the simile, “My room smell like pee-pee.”

When the bell rang, I was standing at attention at my doorway. The third grade classrooms are in portable buildings out behind the school, and I guess it took a while for the kids to find their way back there, as GPS navigation systems were not included on this year’s list of school supplies. After a while, the kids started filtering in slowly, most of them being accompanied by at least one parent. One boy’s father approached me with a twenty-dollar bill in hand, and for a second there, I thought I was going to receive my first bribe. “I know they’re just coloring today, but an A would be appreciated,” as he surreptitiously palms the money to me. But of course it wasn’t a pay-off, it was for a set of school supplies, so I directed him to the office.

Another little boy, Alex, came in with both mother and father, and once he was seated at a desk, his father asked if he could videotape his son. He had a little hand-held camera, and he shot a couple of minutes of his son hard at work. This being the first day of class, the kids were perfectly behaved. I only hope Alex’s father has no reason to come back in two months to film “3rd Graders Gone Wild.”

I think that Alex’s father was happy that his son would have a male teacher. Several other parents made comments about that as well today, along the lines of “My child has never had a man teacher before.” In most cases, I couldn’t really tell if they thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I’m sure their child has also never had a three-headed Martian teacher with no ears.

The other teachers and I had put together little packets for the kids to work on while we spoke with the parents. These were really “profile” pages — name, age, favorite TV show, that sort of thing. There were also a few pages of very basic addition and subtraction problems, and then some coloring pages. One of these coloring sheets had detailed instructions on how to color it. “Color the flowers near the house blue.” “Color the roof black.” And so on. As I walked around the room, I saw several batches of red flowers near green-roofed houses.

As their new teacher, I wanted to make an impression on the kids, so after the parents left, I felt I should give a short motivational speech. Something to tell them how much I love math and science and how I want them to feel the love as well. A speech that would open the floodgates of their desire to be the best mathematicians and scientists they could possibly be. I combined the most rousing catch lines from movies such as Mr. Holland’s Opus, Stand and Deliver, and Animal House. I even ended with a hearty “Hi-yo, Silver!” Some might have read the look in their eyes as dazed, confused, even frightened, but I know I touched some souls.

Well hey, today was a full day on hardly any sleep, and I am exhausted! I will write more soon and tell you about more of the kids.

Say hi to everyone there at dear ol’ Heat Pumps Unlimited for me. And tell them that I have a new credo in life now:
I teach, therefore I am... poor.
Talk to you later,
Mister Teacher

Date: Thursday, August 21, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The Devil went down to Dallas
Hey bud,
Yes, I know that it’s awfully early to be starting school. But you can’t expect everything to be exactly like it was when YOU went to school. No more waiting until after Labor Day. No more spankings in the corner. Oh, and did you hear that there are FIFTY states now?

Today went pretty well, and I’m close now to having a full week under my belt. This first week is going to be more about getting rules and procedures put in place than hardcore teaching. They say the first few days of school set the tone for the entire year. Come across as too soft, and the kids will walk all over you the whole year. Act too strict and their spirits will be broken and they won’t be productive. So I’ve tried to arrive at a happy middle ground by starting each day with group pushups, but also letting the kids refer to me as “Your highness.” We’ll see how it goes.

OK, I promised that I’d tell you all about my kids. I should first let you know that going from a group of engineers at Heat Pumps Unlimited to a group of third-graders was really not that big a step down the maturity ladder. Sure, it’s tough having to put up with all of the cries of “Why do I have to do this?” and “Isn’t it time for lunch YET??” not to mention the daily temper tantrums. Frankly, I’m glad I left those behind.

The children are, of course, shorter than me. Much, much shorter. I feel (and look) like Gandalf among the hobbits in Bag-End. They range in size from barely over three feet tall — like adorable little Chita, who walked into class yesterday, looked straight up at me with a grin, and said, “Wow, you’re tall... Can you see the top of a refrigerator?” — to around five feet tall, not much shorter than Ron Philby. Does Philby still drive that huge pickup truck, the one that requires a stepladder to help him climb into it?

This being a public school, there is no uniform here, so the kids mostly wear T-shirts and shorts or sweats. So far, the only standout from a fashion sense has been a little boy named Thomson, who obviously sees himself as a baller. Today he came in wearing a Boston Celtics jersey, green Celtics shorts, a green headband and green socks — all with the NBA logo — and green Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star sneakers. When I asked if he was a Larry Bird fan, he replied, “Who’s Larry Bird?”

These are eight- and nine-year-olds, and as such, most of them have rather high-pitched voices, but none more so than a girl named Tereelia. Imagine what Rocky the Flying Squirrel would sound like if someone were squeezing his nuts. It’s like she forces all of the air out of her lungs, and then tries to talk.

Many of my students have interesting names (ex: Tereelia), but one in particular takes the cake. This morning, Miss Marsh, one of the other third grade teachers, brought me a homework folder that she had found on the ground. She knew it was mine because it had 3F written on it. As she handed me the folder, she asked, “You have SATAN in your class?” At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I looked at the name on the folder and it all fell into place.

This kid has been here since the first day of class, but I had never done more than just glance at his name in print. His name is Sa’tun, and spoken aloud his name doesn’t sound like Satan, it’s more like “suh-ton” with the emphasis placed on the “ton.” Don’t ask me why someone would give their child a name that is so... inexplicable. But who am I to judge? For a long time, I was set on naming my first child Optimus Prime.

Sa’tun is really quiet. I don’t mean he sits there and does no wrong — he definitely has a mischievous side. But when he speaks, he speaks incredibly softly. You remember how frustrating it was to have a conversation with Latya, back when he worked with us? Even from five feet away, you’d see his lips moving, but no sounds were coming out. And then he’d accuse us of being “loud American blokes” when we talked in our normal voices!

Sa’tun is like Latya. Except for the chubby, goateed, British, or Indian parts. When he says something to me, I have to bend over so my ear is right next to his mouth, and even then I have to strain to hear his voice.

After Miss Marsh’s visit this morning, I had to concentrate not to imagine horns and a tail on the poor kid. Or to call on him in class in the voice of Dana Carvey in the old Saturday Night Live skit. “Who knows the answer? WHO should I call on? Oh, I don’t know... maybe... SATAN?!?”

I just hope he’s smart and I don’t have to fail him. Imagine the headlines — “Teacher Rejects Satan!”
Talk to you later,
The Church Lady

Date: Monday, August 25, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Lay of the Land
Hey dude,
Thanks for relaying all the good thoughts from everyone there. Tell Carol I think she’s right, the kids probably ARE a little bit intimidated by my size, but I’m sure that won’t last long. It’s not like I’m Chippy the Terror Clown of Doom or something. What, you weren’t scared of clowns when you were little? Yeah, um, me neither.

I realized that I haven’t told you much about my classroom itself or the work environment in general. I can sum up the joy of it in two words — NO CUBICLES!! No more cramming my lanky frame into a 6X6 cell every day. Of course, it WAS fun to stand up in the center of my cubicle and be able to look over the wall into everyone else’s cube.

This school is huge. Not only is the building full, but there are over twenty portable classrooms in the back. Here in Trailer Park City, as I like to call it, is where you’ll find the first, second, and third grades. Somehow, I lucked out and got the largest classroom out there. The portable itself is a “double-wide,” and I share it with the head Special Education teacher. Only a thin wall with a door in it separates our rooms within the trailer. So far, I haven’t heard any screams coming from the other side of the door. No doubt Ms. Hamm, the Special Ed. teacher, is thinking the same thing regarding MY class.

In addition to the large class space in my room, there is a walk-in storage closet and a small entrance where the kids can hang their backpacks. Turning left, we come to the gym, and just past the concession stand is the restorative sauna and lap pool. OK, maybe not, but only because the good folks from “Pimp My Classroom” haven’t come calling from MTV just yet. Until then, I’ll have to be content with the fact that my portable is the only one with its own bathroom and water fountain. One of the other teachers suggested that I could keep the kids in line by threatening to make them clean the bathroom if they misbehaved. I may have to consider that.

In the week before school started, I looked in on a few of the other teachers’ rooms, to get some ideas for how to set up my own. The first room I looked at had most of the desks and dry-erase boards up at the front of the room, and games, craft materials, and a computer at the rear. That’s right, my friend — learning up front, playtime in the back. It’s the mullet of portable classrooms!

I finally settled on my own room design. I arranged the student desks into groups of four, so that each child has his or her own desk and chair, but pushed together, they form five “tables” around the room. With this grouping, I can say, “Table One, line up for restroom break,” or “Table Four, you’re being too loud,” or “Table Three, what on earth is that smell?” There is a cylindrical plastic container to hold pencils and red pens at each table, and each container has the table number on it. The five tables are in turn arranged in a horseshoe pattern, with the open end facing the overhead screen. The overhead projector is the most complex piece of technology in the classroom (unless you count my geek calculator watch). There is an Apple computer in the room, but it’s about as old as I am, so I don’t think I’ll ever use it unless I need something heavy to hold open my door.

There are two large bulletin boards on the walls. On the one at the back of the classroom, I spent about three days constructing a football field out of green and white butcher paper. I’m pretty proud of that accomplishment — it looks good. I even had someone take a picture of me standing in a Heisman Trophy pose in front of it. We’ll be using it (the board, not the picture) later this year to mark the kids’ progress in multiplication, and I’ll go into more detail when we start on that.

Mrs. Jones, who is now our grade chair, used this room last year, and she was kind enough to leave a ton of her stuff for me. Not only supplies like crayons and markers, but also bulletin board cloth and wall posters. One of the items she bequeathed to me is a nice red recliner. This comfy chair sits in one corner of the room, and I’ll be working it into my system of prizes and rewards. As soon as I come up with a system, that is. At the end of each day, I come back to my room and just crash on that chair. It’s so wonderful. You really should look into getting a recliner installed in your cubicle. Sure, you might not have room for some other stuff, like your computer, desk, and file cabinet, but it would totally be worth it.
Later,
La-Z Boy

Date: Thursday, August 28, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: 3rd and inches?
Hey bud,
OK, filling out the purchasing request form is certainly the first step towards getting your new cubicle armchair. Now you just have to convince Paul to sign off on it. Good luck, my friend.

Something disturbing happened today. Or maybe it wasn’t really disturbing, and I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Let me tell you what happened, and you can decide if I was wrong to be put off my stride.

We have kids here who are termed ESL—English as a Second Language. Kind of like Jimmy in IT over on your end, except I think English is Jimmy’s THIRD language—right behind Visual Basic and Klingon. (Big Brother is probably reading this right now—Heya, Jimbo!) Anyway, for most of these ESL kids, Spanish is their first language. Some of them speak English quite well, while others still struggle over certain words.

Of course, I should mention that I do have one boy in each class who does not speak any English at all. Christopher in 3E and Umberto in 3F. Thankfully, so many of the other kids speak English AND Spanish, and they can translate for me. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten most of the Spanish I learned in grade school, but I do remember a few articles of clothing and several food items (Yo quiero un pantelones con jelado, por favor!). I know that “La Quinta” means “Next to a Denny’s.” And of course I remember all of the dirty words that I learned from a foreign exchange student in 8th grade. I could never forget those. That knowledge will probably come in handy as a teacher, since the kids won’t be able to get away with cussing in another language. I do also know my numbers in Spanish up to about one hundred; I’ll have to try and learn them up to a million.

But let’s return to my disturbing story. This girl named Jessica is an ESL student in my class. Today, the kids were working on stuff at their desks, and I was walking around overseeing. When I got to Jessica’s desk, she looked up at me and asked, “Mr. Woodson, how long are you?” OK, before you accuse me of reading inappropriate messages into a simple language barrier, let me continue. I figured she was probably just using the wrong word, so I tried to correct her by saying, “You mean how tall am I?” She replied, “No. How long are you? How big?” (Emphasis on “big.”) Well, I thought that was a bit odd, but I still thought she meant how tall, so I was opening my mouth to say “six-foot-four,” when she threw out a guess. And this is what turned the whole innocent conversation into a mess in my mind. Because her guess was not a guess of someone’s height, not even close. Even coming from a little kid, this was WAY too far off. Are you ready? Her guess was “Seven inches?”

I will let you think about that one for a while, my friend. Am I over-reacting? Or should I be afraid, very afraid?
Talk to you later,
Tom Thumb

Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: All things in moderation
Hey pal,
Yes, I agree that seven FEET would have been a legitimate guess, but she definitely said seven INCHES. I must have lived an INCREDIBLY sheltered life growing up. Was it just me, or did your parents wait until you were twenty before giving you the birds and bees talk? OK, so I’m exaggerating, but some of these kids seem to be way too familiar with certain topics.

I learned a new term today — mobility rate. This refers to the tendency of students to enroll and withdraw here at the school. If the first couple of weeks of this school year are any indication, I am in for a real roller coaster. Last week, 3F got two new students, and I lost one from 3E. Also today, Raul told me that tomorrow will be his last day. I may have a whole new class by the last day of school!

One child I’m sure will be around forever is Marvin. This kid is quite the character. He is always fooling around in class, and he seems to have a real knack for getting into trouble anywhere he goes. It might just be that he has THE worst case of Attention Deficit Hyper — hey! I love this new Linkin Park song on the radio! But like I was saying, Marvin has ADHD pretty darn bad. If he’s not careful, he may grow up to be just like Larry, and nobody wants that, right?

This week, we’ve been reviewing how to count money. The kids get to play with these little plastic coins that look just like the real deal. Yesterday, Marvin asked me, “Before there were quarters, how did people clean their clothes?” It took me a few moments to understand what he was asking, but it finally dawned on me, and I replied, “I guess they just washed them in a river or in the bathtub, and not in a coin-operated laundry machine.” Thankfully, there were no follow-up questions about how people bought Dr. Pepper before there were dimes.

It gets worse. This afternoon, Mrs. Bird, another third grade teacher, told me that when she went to pick her kids up from recess, Marvin was sitting atop one of her students, with his hands wrapped around this kid’s neck. When she told him to stop choking the boy, Marvin got up and calmly said, “But I didn’t choke him that hard!”

Hey, I for one am proud of Marvin’s self-constraint. He obviously could have squeezed much harder, but in his mind that would have been wrong. It’s nice to know that he draws the line between good clean choking and actual trachea damage.

I’m reminded of Mike Tyson’s historic words at an infamous fight — “But I didn’t bite THAT much of his ear off!”

Only the third week of school, and already a kid has lunch detention. Joy.
Talk to you later,
The Boston Semi-Strangler

Date: Thursday, September 4, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Is that really appropriate?
Hey Fred-wise,
Yeah, if Marvin stays the course, then the next time I see you guys, I might be saying, “But my hair isn’t THAT gray!”

Anyway, let’s move on. Every morning, we start the day with the same routine. The little munchkins come into the room, hang their backpacks up, go to their desks and start on the Problem of the Day. The Problem of the Day is a word problem on the overhead machine, and the kids take their spirals out of their desks, copy the word problem down and then go through the steps of solving it. I usually have a CD playing in the background, something that is soothing and relaxing. I find computation comes easiest when you’re listening to Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor,” or “Nookie,” by Limp Bizkit. Just kidding, it’s all instrumental.

After Problem of the Day, we do Minute Math (we like our capitalization, by golly!). Minute Math is a sheet of forty addition or subtraction problems that the kids must work in a certain amount of time, which is a closely guarded secret. These are flash card type questions, i.e. 2+3, 5+1, designed to help the kids memorize math facts. Counting on your fingers is fine up to a certain age, but not when the problem is 8+0. The fact that Larry still counts on his fingers is grounds for a whole separate discussion...

So it’s usually the same routine every day. But not today. Today, while we were grading the Problem of the Day, this lady came into my classroom, saying she’s from the district. She told me that she was trying to see who needs glasses, and to make sure that they get their eyes checked.

So she made an announcement to the entire class, stressing the importance of taking care of your eyes, and then she asked who was having trouble seeing the overhead from their desks. A couple of the kids raised their hands. Then I guess she didn’t see enough hands for her satisfaction, and felt that some kids might not WANT to wear glasses, so she made her pitch, and I quote:
“I think glasses are SEXY!”
At that, there were a few nervous giggles, and several of the kids shot looks my way that seemed to ask, “Did she really just say that?” Thomson, who already wears glasses, assumed a look that was equal parts belligerent, cocky, and confused.

Am I being a prude here, or was this lady out of line? Should you really use the word “sexy” around eight- and nineyear-olds? It’s like airing a commercial for Bacardi rum in the middle of an episode of Sesame Street. (Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter B and the number 151!) Couldn’t she have substituted the word “cool” or “stylish” or “pimpin’?” Well, maybe not that last one, but surely there is a better option. Am I the only one that gets a little uneasy with the thought that this woman is going around to schools telling third-graders (and who knows, maybe even first graders!) that they too can get their schwerve on by donning a pair of spectacles?

What do you think would happen if you went out to Boston to meet with a customer, and Ron Philby tried to make sales by opening discussions with, “I think heat pumps are SEXY?”
Lady, there is a time and a place, and this ain’t it.
Oh, and speaking of inappropriate, Nancy keeps emailing me and asking how long I am. Thank you SOOOO much for passing that story on to her... Doesn’t she have phone calls to make? She IS still in customer service, right?
Later,
Right Said Fred

Date: Monday, September 8, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Flip flops and a simple science lesson
Hey bud,
I’m truly sorry to have offended you if you really do think heat pumps ARE sexy. Maybe when you and Philby go up to New York next week, you can bring a Barry White CD and a few bottles of Boone’s Farm to help you boost sales...

I have to tell you about a phenomenon that I have witnessed a lot of from these kids since I have been here, and that is something I like to call flip-flopping. If the kids are unsure of an answer during open discussion, they will often change it without really even thinking about it. For instance, I can ask someone, “How many nickels are in one quarter?” and he will say, “Five.” I can then say, “Are you sure?” and he will frequently respond with, “Um, four?” I’m trying to get my kids away from guessing, but I find myself struggling to convince them that “Are you sure?” does not mean “Wrong! Try again!”

This new boy Esteban takes flip-flopping to a whole new level. He changes his answers, but he yells out each response with absolute certainty that he’s correct this time. Here’s a typical conversation with Esteban:
Me: In the number 4,318, what place value does the 8 have?
Esteban: HUNDREDS!!
Me: Are you sure?
Esteban: ONES!!!
Me: Are you s—
Esteban: TEN THOUSANDS!!!!!!
Me: Esteban, stop screaming!

And not only does he shout, but he punctuates each response with a jab of the finger in the air in a gesture that clearly states, “YEAH! Nailed another one!”

I also had the opportunity today to show the valuable uses of science and knowledge of how things work. As you might have guessed, it can get quite hot out in these portable classrooms, so I’ve told the kids that they can bring water bottles to class. They are not allowed to drink soft drinks or juice in class, but water is fine. Many of them have taken advantage of this, and I have seen some interesting bottles. Sofia has one with a gigantic Scooby-Doo head on the top, and Ricky has some funky little foldable-straw bottle that takes him about two minutes to manipulate every time he wants a drink.

This morning, some of the kids tattled on Jessica, saying that she had a bottle of Sprite. Sure enough, it was a green Sprite bottle, but Jessica insisted that it contained water.

“OK, I believe you,” I told Jessica, and then I shook the bottle vigorously for several seconds. “But do me a favor and go ahead and open the bottle now,” I said. “If it’s water, you can drink a little, but if it’s Sprite, it’s going to spill everywhere, and you’ll have to clean it up. Oh, and you’ll have no recess for a week.”

I handed the bottle back to her as she frowned. She made no move to open it. “Are you sure it’s water?” I asked her. Her eyes fixed on the floor as she said, “No, it’s Sprite.” I took the offending liquid back to my desk and we got on with the rest of our day. I’m such a softy though, I gave Jessica her drink back at lunchtime instead of drinking it myself.

I’m just glad I didn’t have to do my little demonstration with Esteban, because I can imagine how that would have gone.

“What’s in the bottle?”
“IT’S WATER!”
“Oh, really?”
“IT’S SPRITE!!”
“Sprite?”
“IT’S MOUNTAIN DEW!!!”

Sheesh. But you know, if at any time today Jessica had shouted out, “He blinded me...with SCIENCE!!” I probably would have given her an A for the year.
Later,
Thomas Dolby

Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: In math class, no one can hear you scream
Hey buddy,
OK, I will concede that coming to class with a bottle of Sprite is better than coming to class with a bottle of Shiner Bock. However, both violate school policy — just to different degrees.

Rose came in with glasses today, and they seem to be doing her a lot of good. Chalk up one success for the “glasses are sexy” lady! By the way, I had to laugh out loud when you told me that Larry has been using that line on all the ladies there at HPU. Pretty conceited of him seeing as how HE’S the one who wears glasses.

Have you seen the movie Freddy vs. Jason? Yeah, didn’t think so. Me neither. But for some reason, this movie is huge with the third graders. The boys especially are always talking about it.

It’s hard enough to get Nathan, the human pinball in my class, to focus and be productive. He’s constantly out of his seat, bouncing off the walls, and bothering the other kids. Now every other word out of his mouth is about Freddy vs. Jason.

We were talking about fractions today. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about comparing or reducing fractions yet, but the kids do have to identify parts of a whole when shown a picture. For example, “What fraction of squares is shaded?” I gave a little mini-lesson on the topic and then let the kids get busy on an assignment.

I hadn’t even had time to turn off the overhead machine when Nathan was up out of his seat, walking over to me. He asked, “Mr. Woodson, have you seen Freddy vs. Jason?” Without missing a beat, I answered, “No, and I haven’t seen Nathan vs. Fractions, either.”

Nathan stopped dead in his tracks with a look of surprise on his face, but it was replaced quickly with a laugh. “Ooooh, good one!” he said, and then he returned to his seat and got to work.

So now I’m wondering... Would the pitch fly at DreamWorks or New Line? “From the people who brought you The Good, the Bad, and the Denominator — A tenacious third-grader...Four red balloons out of seven...There can be only one survivor...” (Cue shriek of terror.)

Or better yet, let’s see if we can interest Russell Crowe in taking on the role of General Fraximus in “Numerator.” Might be a bit of a tough sell, doing fractions with Roman numerals, but it would have one heck of a tag line.
For those about to divide, we salute you!
I’ll get working on the script, you come up with the dough, OK? Until then,
May the Fourths be with you,
½-wit Johnson

Date: Friday, September 12, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Demon spawn, or something
awfully close
Hey bud,
Wow, thanks for all the potential tag lines for our own personal Project Green Light: Nathan vs. Fractions. You guys really put some time and effort into that! Slow day at the office, I take it? My favorites were “Houston, we have a fraction,” and “Fractions...Why did it have to be fractions?” Raiders of the Lost Arc, very nice!

I can’t believe even Larry got into the act! Tell him his suggestion — “What we have here, is failure to numerate” — isn’t bad, but most of today’s youth probably would not catch the reference.

In a few weeks, we can do Planet of the Shapes — “Get your angles off me, you damn dirty polygon!”

I got a new little girl in class on Wednesday. She is very strange. All day Wednesday and yesterday, she seemed comatose and unable to follow or even comprehend directions. I think now that I would have been a MUCH happier camper if only she had stayed in that semi-catatonic state.

Her real name is Chandra, but I’m just going to refer to her from here on out as Lucifer, because I truly think she comes from Down Under! She enrolled last week in the fourth grade, but apparently, she never passed the TAKS reading test. So she got moved back to the third grade, and into my loving care.

I think this girl is clinically insane. Throwing off the stupor, today she sat in class and talked, hummed, screamed, made weird noises, and bothered the other kids. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she made random comments that didn’t make any sense, in a put-on, childish, high-pitched voice, at the top of her lungs.

Today was a test day, so during the exams, the kids all had their privacy screens up on their desks. A privacy screen is two manila folders stapled together that can be stood up to prevent kids from cheating. Think of them as micro-cubicles. The screens seemed to frustrate Lucifer, because she wasn’t as easily able to distract her fellow students. She sits at the same little table group as Carlos, Rachel, and Jessica. I had already heard Rachel tell her to stop bugging her, and I was standing behind their group as she kicked Carlos under the table. If I hadn’t been so ticked at Lucifer, I might have laughed and applauded Carlos’ reaction. Instead of the expected childish, “Stop it!” or kicking back, Carlos glanced up at me with a look and a gesture that clearly said, “What is the deal with this chick??”

I moved Lucifer out to the desk in my entrance alcove and told her to finish her test out there. When I went to check on her a few minutes later, she was sitting at the desk, wearing her backpack. In addition, she had lined up all of the other kids’ backpacks in little groups of two, like they were ready to board Noah’s Ark. Of course, her test had not been touched. I asked her to remove the backpack and get busy. She informed me in her loud, baby-talk voice that her “Auntie” had told her never to take her backpack off, or she would “get a whoopin’.”

She’s also a bloody thief! Pinar complained about her Problem of the Day notebook missing this afternoon. Pinar sits at the same desk Lucifer does, so it wasn’t too hard to tag the culprit. Mrs. Swanson and I went into the gym while my homeroom was in P.E., and we looked through Lucifer’s backpack. You know we’re entitled to do that now, under the Patriot Act. Not only did we find both Pinar’s and Lucifer’s notebooks (which are supposed to stay in my room), we also found four boxes of crayons and two post-it pads from my room, and a tape dispenser from Mrs. Swanson’s room. Holy Five-Fingered Discount, Batman!

As of today, the school counselor’s cell phone number is high on my speed dial. I can already tell that I’ll be seeing a lot of Mrs. O’Brien.

And hey, speaking of crazy people (Lucifer, not Mrs. O’Brien), what is up with your customers in Boston? Don’t they realize that you can’t have 200,000 pumps ready for them tomorrow, for a buck apiece? Can I just say I do NOT miss those guys? Be sure to give them (half of) the peace sign for me next week while you’re up there.
Later,
Val Yumm

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Comparing apples and...other fruits
Hey bud,
How’s the Big Apple? Or have you moved on to Philly already? Say hey to Jonas for me, and ask if he still wants his heat pumps painted bright green — he’ll know what you’re talking about. I’m assuming you brought your laptop with you so you can check your email. If not, maybe I’ll have to send a few prank emails to Reggie and Bert. I always did love messing with upper management.

Oh, and speaking of big apples, guess what happened today. One of my students actually came into class and gave me an apple! Here I always thought that was just an old cliché, seen only in old movies and TV shows like Little House on the Prairie, but I guess it truly happens!

First thing this morning, right after the bell had rung, the kids were wandering into my room. Anita came in, walked right over, shyly said, “Here, Mr. Woodson. It’s for you,” and handed me an apple. Wasn’t that nice of her? Anita is a real sweetheart, and with her, I trust that there is nothing wrong with the apple. If it had been Marvin or Sa’tun, I might have had to check for needle-marks or paint.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see what other teacher-related clichés are true. Like the kids asking me if I live at the school. Or the one I really hope is true — the kids giving me hundred dollar bills for Christmas. Are you familiar with that one? Happens all the time in the movies.

We worked on telling time and reading a clock today. All of the kids had little six-inch by six-inch clocks with adjustable hands at their desks. As an exercise, I would write a time up on the overhead (digital) and ask everyone to make that time on his or her clock (analog). Then I would walk around, checking their progress. When someone had displayed the time properly, I said, “Way to go!” and slapped their hand a low five. At one point, Thomson followed me halfway around the room, held out his hand, and asked, “Can I get another ‘Way to go?’” I guess his tank was running a little low. But hey, another happy customer! Unlike some of yours, from the sounds of things...

On to curriculum and testing — two things that I know are never far from your thoughts. A lot of the material that we’ve covered so far this year has been review for these kids, things they knew from the second grade. But pretty soon, we’re going to start to get into some of the new stuff, in preparation for the big TAKS test. I had always heard that the only two constants in life were Death and TAKSes, but it wasn’t until this year that I fully understood what that meant.

In case you didn’t know, TAKS does NOT stand for That Aggravating Kidney Stone. Rather, it is the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, and public school students take them from 3rd grade through high school. I really don’t know why they don’t just switch the K and the S and call it what it is. Believe me, they are a huge pain in the rear, perhaps more so even than a kidney stone.

3rd graders have to take a reading TAKS and a math TAKS. The reading TAKS is in March (the first one — they get three tries), and the math TAKS is in April. If they do not pass the reading TAKS, they cannot advance to the 4th grade. (Case in point — Lucifer) So there’s a bit of pressure on these kids, especially the ones who come from non-English speaking families (which is over half the class). I’ll try not to gripe too much about the TAKS in my emails, but once we hit January or February (crunch-time), all bets are off.

And speaking of my favorite student, Lucifer is holding constant in her unorthodox ways. She continues to insist that she is in the 4th grade (don’t I wish!), while she continues to act like she is a kindergartener.

I had been telling her that if she really wants to behave like a baby, then I would find a first grade classroom for her. Today, I made good on that threat. During our morning restroom break, I took Lucifer down to Frank Swanson’s room (Kelly’s husband). He was kind enough to take her off my hands for the day, though the embarrassment of being in a younger class apparently did not register with her. The first thing Frank said to me when the day was over was, “That girl is NUTS!!”

Yep, that’s my Lucifer. Oh, and thanks for the advice, Fred, but I’m pretty sure it would be unethical AND illegal to slip barbiturates into her chocolate milk in the hopes of getting her back to that initial comatose state. But I continue to welcome your thoughts and ideas.
Later,
Froot Loop

Date: Thursday, September 18, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Can I get some ketchup for my shoe?
Hey frequent flier,
Glad to hear that the trip is going well. For all his Type-A, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen personality, Philby really is a good guy, and he’s definitely fun to travel with. I can’t believe he wasn’t open to the Barry White suggestion, though.

You also mentioned a great teacher cliché in your last email. You’re right, on TV and in movies, school kids DO set their teachers up on hot dates all the time! That would be awesome! But I have a feeling I’ll just have to settle for the apple.

Oh boy, I really committed a big-time faux pas (that’s French for royal screw-up) tonight. When I tell you what happened, I know you’re going to ask if Larry was somehow involved, but no, this was all me.

We had a sort of open house this evening at the school so that all of the parents who wanted to come and meet their children’s teachers could do so. In turn, this was our first meeting with several of the kids’ folks.

We all congregated in my room to begin. The room was packed with the seven third grade teachers, our grade chair, and I’d guess about sixty parents, along with their third graders and siblings. Oh, and a translator of course, for all of the Spanish-only speaking people.

We all had a role in the spiel that was delivered to the parents. One teacher talked about the TAKS tests, another talked about the homework schedule. My part was to stress the importance of getting their kids to school on time, AND to make sure they knew that the school day actually starts at 7:53, and not at 8:00 as is commonly believed. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, I don’t wonder. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me either, and I’m really not sure how well it stood up under translation to another language.

After the group part was over, the other teachers went back to their rooms and the parents followed. As a result, my room cleared out a great deal and I got to meet some of my students’ parents.

First I talked with Ariel’s folks, who are very nice people. Ariel is a very polite, almost somber little girl. Wednesday Addam’s temperament, without all the black clothing. While I spoke with her parents, she and her sisters calmly and quietly played math games on the white-board. After asking my permission, of course. I also met Guadalupe’s and Sandra’s mothers. Neither of them spoke English, and our original translator had left, so the girls translated. Though I spoke with them at separate times, both of them expressed the same major concern — “Is my daughter doing her homework?” I told the girls to take their mothers over to the homework chart on the wall, where each was able to point out her unbroken string of stickers, and this appeased the madres. If only Ralph or Esteban’s mothers would show similar concerns!

Then came the foot-in-mouth portion of the evening. Laura, from Mrs. Swanson’s homeroom, was in my room, and two people were with her. Laura is very precocious, and she seems to know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Both of the people with her looked pretty young — one was thin with long blonde hair, wearing a skirt, while the other was heavy-set, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and sporting a buzz-cut. They started asking about Laura’s progress in class, and we spoke for a few minutes. Then I made the big mistake of asking who they were.

In retrospect, I think the misstep was mainly in the phrasing. I probably should have just asked, “And how are you related to Laura?” Even a simple but direct, “Who the hell are you?” would have been better, actually. But no, I went on my assumption (like an idiot) and asked, “So, are you Laura’s brother and sister?”

At that, the “sister” kind of smirked, while the “brother” matter-of-factly stated, “I’m her mother.”

Yeah. But I think I recovered quite nicely, and I did what anybody naturally would have done in this instance. I put on my best Homer Simpson voice and yelled, “AWKWARD!” No, I’m just kidding. We tried to carry on the conversation like nothing had happened, but I could tell that the room had gotten considerably colder.

At least I learned a valuable lesson tonight. I certainly won’t be making THAT assumption again! Or at least not vocalizing it...
Later,
The village idiot

Date: Monday, September 22, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Professor Plum, in the Cafeteria, with the...fish stick???
What’s up, Fred?
Welcome back to Big D and 100+ degree temperatures! I’d invite you over for a swim, but I think my apartment people are still celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. The water is an eerie shamrock green shade.

A new little girl joined my class today. Her name is Francine. She’s already in the special education program, and she seems quiet and shy. She hardly spoke at all today, and before long, a teacher’s aide came to take her to the library for testing. Hopefully this is not merely the calm before the storm, as in Lucifer: Part 2 (Demonic Boogaloo).

Also, at lunch today, Marvin never showed up at the teacher’s lounge. Normally, this would be fine — preferable even — but since he is in trouble again (clearly his personal state of equilibrium), he is required to stay in from recess all of this week. Instead of going outside when he finishes his lunch, he is supposed to come down to the teacher’s lounge and sit out in the hallway where we can keep an eye on him. But today, he was a no-show.

When Mrs. Swanson and I went outside to pick up the kids, Marvin wasn’t outside either. I asked where he was, and Nathan answered, “He’s still in the cafeteria. He got in trouble for throwing food.”

Throwing food — that’s typically NOT a good thing to hear one of your kids has been doing. But then, people generally don’t come up to me and tell me that Marvin has just saved a litter of kittens from certain death or delivered hot meals to the elderly. And in his defense, throwing food IS better than choking someone — regardless of how hard.

I left Mrs. Swanson with both classes, and I went to the cafeteria to find Marvin. Sure enough, there he was, standing right by the door, wearing his patented “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I’m mad that I got caught” pout. As we walked back outside to the rest of the class, I asked him why he had been throwing food. As you might guess, I got the standard shoulder shrug and “I dunno.” As he shrugged, something caught my eye, and I looked more closely at Marvin. I noticed a little bit of fish stick breading on one of his eyebrows. At that point, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or offer him some tartar sauce.

I can only guess what kind of crumbs (or sauce) will be on Marvin’s face tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. On a totally unrelated note, have they started hiring again at Heat Pumps Unlimited?? Just curious.

Oh, and I’m glad to hear that everyone on your end got a kick out of my foot-in-mouth story. Please tell Tom Winter that no, I did not make things even worse by asking Laura’s mother if she was pregnant. That just wouldn’t have been polite, and I would never intentionally do such a thing. But I did ask her how long she was.
Later,
The Gorton Fisherman

Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Time Wasters Anonymous
Hey Freddie,
You don’t have to remind me, I ate lunch with Latya frequently, so I remember his tendency to catch food particles in that goatee of his. He was just saving a few morsels to snack on later. But we’re talking about an EYEBROW here. That just ain’t normal.

We waste so much time in class every day, it’s not even funny. It seems that for every one minute of productive class time, I spend five minutes getting the kids back on track! This is really getting frustrating, so today I did something about it.

With about ten minutes left to go in class, I gave every child a piece of paper and told them to write down some reasons WHY we’ve been wasting so much class time and some ways to STOP wasting time. In addition to making them stop and think about the problem, I figured it’s good writing practice for them.

Of course, it was no huge surprise to read the papers and find that not a whole lot was being said. For the most part, the kids wrote down WHAT they have been doing, not WHY. “We are playing when we should be listening,” and “I am sorry for talking when you are,” appeared several times. Ralph and Lindsay both started their notes with, “I am,” and ended with “sorry.” In between those words, they were apparently having a contest to see who could write the word “very” the most times (Ralph won, 19-11).

I told the kids that I was going to hold on to these notes so that the next time they started fooling around, I could pull them out and have them re-read what they had written, to see if they were living up to the promises to behave better. Now there’s an empty threat if ever there was one. There were a few standouts in the letter pile: Guadelupe and Esteban both ended their notes with, “I love you, Mr. Woodson.” (And really, how come you never end your emails that way?)

I got a new student in my class today. His name is Clark, and I don’t think I heard him say a word all day. He wrote in his note, “I am sorry I talked. I will never do it again.” Imagine how wonderful I feel now...

But the prize for top-notch writing goes to Ariel. Whereas most of the kids just said they were sorry for talking, Ariel actually critiqued the system. Here’s an excerpt from her front-and-back suggestion page:

I think that people act up because sometimes you give them too many warnings. You say you are going to put them in time-out, but then you don’t. Maybe you should give one warning and then people get in trouble. Or you should try a different system because right now we are still wasting time.

Yipes! Smacked down by a third grader! But that’s good ol’ Ariel, telling it how it is. And of course she’s right. Shocking as it is to see such frankness from an eight-year-old, she hit the nail right on the head. It’s such a shame that I must kill her now...

Just kidding. Actually, if you want, I could send Ariel over your way one day to help brainstorm ideas for more efficient factory flow. She seems to be cut out for the consulting profession.
Talk to you later,
Chaz Tiste

Date: Friday, September 26, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Dancing with the devil
Hey buddy,
OK, OK, I promise I’ll hold off on sending Ariel your way since you’re already getting enough criticism at HPU from Reggie. Don’t let him get to you too much, he’s just a very intense, very focused guy, especially in status meetings. I remember the status meeting after my first design had shipped to the customer. When we started talking about that project, Reggie asked, “How did it go?” and I replied, “I think by FedEx.” Everyone in the room laughed except for Reggie. He’s just focused. Or maybe he has a tapeworm, one of the two.

I’m sorry that you’re taking a lot of the blame for production errors. But consider this — at least you don’t have to deal with children behaving like exotic dancers.

After today, I am convinced that Lucifer’s mom, or “Auntie,” or whoever she is living with must be a stripper. All of the sidewalks out around our classrooms are covered, and the coverings are held up by poles on either side of the walkway, spaced about ten feet apart. Lucifer performed what can only be described as a pole dance on one of these walkway supports. I’m not talking about grabbing hold of the pole and swinging around it like Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain style. No, this was incredibly lewd, and I won’t even describe it here. Suffice it to say that she has to have seen those moves somewhere before. If not from a relative, then she must watch Showgirls every single night of her life. (And that would certainly explain a good deal of her instability.) Thankfully, she was at the back of the line, and I don’t think any of the other kids saw her cabaret act.

A little later, when the kids were lined up at the portable restrooms, I noticed that the new girl, Francine, had suddenly appeared. She was standing on the sidewalk, about twenty feet away from us. I started to get worried, because she was acting like someone on drugs. Calling to her got no response. Even standing right in front of her, saying her name and waving my hands in front of her eyes, I got nothing. Her eyes didn’t even appear to be tracking anything. I was almost expecting her head to spin all the way around and to hear her croak, “THERE IS NO FRANCINE, THERE IS ONLY ZUUL.”

Eventually, she snapped out of it and got in line, and we went back to the classroom. However, Francine and Lucifer refused to come inside. Nothing I said would get them to enter my room. The district tends to frown upon teachers bodily picking up students to move them, so I didn’t know what else to do. But I had twenty-some other students waiting for something to do, so I went in to get them set up with their tests.

I came back outside about five minutes later, and both girls were gone. Great! Lucifer is on the loose, and she’s recruited an acolyte! I called Mrs. Jones, my grade chair, thinking that since she doesn’t have a class of her own, she might be able to look around the campus for them. When she showed up a few minutes later, Mrs. Bird also showed up, with the two girls in tow. She had noticed them standing around outside giggling and asked them to come into her room. She told me later at lunch that both girls had told her that they hate me. How sweet. I’m beginning to think I might not be getting a Christmas present from those girls.

Neither girl was in my class for long after they finally returned. A teacher’s aide took Francine to the library for tutoring, and Mrs. Jones sent Mrs. O’Brien, the counselor, to get Lucifer. She’ll probably be suspended for a couple of days next week because of her ever-increasing rap sheet. From that point on, my day was pretty normal. The only abnormal thing was the name of the new little boy that showed up around lunchtime. His name is Plakton. He’ll be in Mrs. Swanson’s homeroom, and Sally, another third-grade newcomer, will be in mine. Other than the name, though, Plakton seems OK. Mind you, I think I said something similar about Francine, and look where that got me. Maybe God is punishing me for going to a college that has a devil as its mascot...
Talk to you later,
Michael the Archangel

Date: Monday, September 29, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: And a first-round pick, to be named later
Hey F-Bomm,
Let me address your suggestions in order:
1) I am not going to a strip club for a parent conference, so you can stop trying to track down the place of employment of the “Auntie.”
2) Cattle prods with children would be dangerous AND against the law.
3) Mrs. O’Brien has other things to do all day than baby sit Lucifer full-time, and bribery wouldn’t change that. Probably.

Today marks the beginning of the second six-week period here at the school, and we’ve made some changes. Last week, the seven third-grade teachers and Mrs. Jones had a meeting where we redistributed the classes. The idea was to take Ms. Dennison’s class — she is the only self-contained class, meaning she doesn’t partner teach — and turn it into an ESL class. This means that the other six of us gave her our Spanish-speaking kids, and our Special Ed. kids as well. She, in turn, split her kids up among our classes.

The first thing I wanted to know was if I would be getting a first-round draft pick next year — isn’t that usually an integral part of a trade package? Sadly, this question was met with blank stares.

Lots of kids in my class speak Spanish, but the ESL class is for the non-English speaking ones, or the kids who are really struggling with English. Mrs. Swanson and I gave Ms. Dennison three kids from each of our classes, and in return, we received four new students each. In 3F, Kelly got three girls — Salma, Susan, and Zaphonalia — and a boy named Victor (no, not Von Doom). In 3E, I got three boys — Jorge, Miguel, and Xander — and a girl named Christy. Don’t worry, I’ll try to get you a program, so you can keep track of all the player substitutions.

The trades went into effect today, so as class rosters go, it felt like starting the school year all over again. Ms. Dennison assured us that all of these kids were great students and that none were discipline problems, but only time will tell. I will miss most of those kids that are now in her class, but hopefully they will get more attention and individualized instruction since their class is not only homogenous, but also much smaller.

Since it was so much like starting over today, I decided to implement my new test-grading procedure as well. Until now, whenever I went over a test, the kids didn’t pay much attention. I’m pretty sure this is because they were already graded, and we were just going over the answers. The kids who had scored well thought they had earned the right not to have to listen, while the kids who had done poorly were too depressed, I guess. So I made a little change to the system.

Last Friday, I graded the tests and wrote the scores in my grade book, as usual. But this time, I didn’t put any marks on the tests themselves. No X’s, no checks, and certainly no grades. Today when I passed the tests back to their owners, I made a little spiel to the kids. “I’ve already graded these tests,” I told them. “And I have the grades in my grade book. We’re going to go over the answers now, and you are going to grade the papers. And when we’re done, you had better have the same grade that I have in my book, because if you don’t, I’ll know that you weren’t paying attention. And that will mean no recess for two days.”

Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. I only had one kid in either class who wrote a different grade on his paper, and that was no surprise at all, because it was Esteban. He awarded himself a 100 when in reality he had made a 59. I thought about making him figure out the difference between the two grades, but I just didn’t have time to go through his guessing process. “FOURTEEN!! “FIFTY-SEVEN!!! “EIGHT!!!!!”
Later,
3E General Manager

Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The eyes have it
Hey bud,
Very perceptive of you. With the end of a 6-week period come report cards. I downed a gallon of Graderade and doled out some scores last week. Why would Tiffany think I failed everybody? Tell her nobody failed — though Jessica and Esteban certainly tried.

In addition to a grade, MANY of the kids also received the comment, “Needs improvement in exhibiting self-control.” That’s only because there was no code for “Needs improvement in not acting like a complete idiot.”

Oh, and to answer your question, no, I will not be putting any of the kids’ tests, papers, or writing samples up for sale on Ebay. I’m sure you were joking about that, right? Didn’t you tell me that Andy got in big trouble last month for selling old pump parts on Ebay? Funny how Tom Winter and I never got in trouble for trying to sell Larry online. Of course, that was probably due to the fact that there were never any bidders.

On to today’s “Sad but True” files. After we switched classes this morning, I was observing the kids as they worked. In particular, I was watching Plakton. And as far as entertainment goes, he didn’t disappoint.

He wasn’t doing his math work, but he was playing around with his pencil. Bouncing the eraser end on his desk and closely scrutinizing how it moved. A little TOO closely, actually. Somehow, he managed to poke himself in the eye. With the sharp end, no less. It was the worst case of hand-eye coordination gone awry I’ve ever seen.

As I continued to watch, Plakton glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone else had witnessed his impromptu attempt to join the Eye Patch of the Month Club. He even looked up at the ceiling once or twice, maybe thinking I was after some aerial photos of the incident.

He finally got out of his seat, approached me, and told me that he needed to go to the nurse because he had recently had eye surgery, and he didn’t want to mess up his eyes. I suggested that a good rule of thumb might be NOT to poke yourself in the eye with the sharp end of a pencil. I’m really not entirely sure that message was received. So much for any hope of him being normal.

Apparently, Plakton had Lasik surgery or something like it last month. Before that, he had worn glasses. Let’s get that lady from the district office back in here and ask her if she thinks poking yourself in the eye with a pencil is sexy.

I looked at his eyes, and they were fine. There was no need for him to go to the nurse, but how careless can you be? I myself had jaw surgery almost ten years ago. It was completely broken and reset, and I can honestly say I went out of my way NOT to whack myself on the chin with a baseball bat or try to take a bite out of a shot put. You don’t really see too many people with slings trying to slam their arm in a car door. It’s just common sense, and somebody obviously doesn’t have any. I really think that boy has been hit in the head with a few too many rogue bludgers.

Lucifer is back today, after being suspended on Monday and Tuesday. Hasn’t changed a bit. All day long, she kept demanding that everyone call her “Beazy B.” Not really the name that was on the tip of my tongue. Though Fred, I should remind you that these ARE children, and we can’t just view them with the analytical eye of the engineer. For instance, I don’t know that I would refer to Marvin, Francine, and Lucifer as “Bad Data Points,” as you so brazenly call them.
Later,
Cyclops

Date: Friday, October 3, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Hut 1, Hut 2, Hut 3 times 6
Hey buddy,
You’re kidding — Paul had Lasik last month? What a coincidence! Still, I’m not sure that asking your boss if he’s poked himself in the eye with a pencil is all that bright, without letting him in on the context first. That might be considered what Latya always called a “CLM” — Career Limiting Move.

Are you ready for some football?? Yes, I realize that the NFL is already midway through their season. My 0-5 fantasy football record is a harsh, constant reminder. However, we’ve finally started to use the football field bulletin board in my classroom. I think I mentioned this board to you in an earlier email, but I didn’t go into too many details.

I’ve had this field up since the beginning of the school year, and the kids have repeatedly asked when we were going to start using it. After I’ve tackled them to the floor and chicken danced on them, they generally haven’t asked again.

The board looks like an overhead view of a football field — green background, with white stripes marking the end zones, sidelines, and major yard lines. However, instead of the yard lines being marked 10, 20, 30, and so on, they are marked 1,2,3...up through 10. The numbers 1 through 10 run left to right on top of the field and right to left on the bottom (so that 3E and 3F can march across the field in different directions). One end zone represents 11, the other 12. I even put the word “HAWKS” in each end zone and a picture of a hawk at center field, since the school mascot is — you guessed it — a monkey.

I gave the kids three options for markers to vote on earlier in the week. A football, a football helmet, and a football jersey. Ralph wanted to vote for a hockey puck, but I pretty much ignored him. The overwhelming favorite was the jersey, so there are about forty little blue and gold jerseys with names on them on both of the “1-yard” lines.

Each week, the kids will be learning the times table for one particular number. There are catchy little songs to help the kids remember. Personally, I think they would catch on much faster if they had someone experienced and in uniform leading the songs — like say, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. But (and I just learned this), the squad apparently doesn’t make school appearances (or apartment visits) during the regular season.

We’re going to focus on multiplication during Minute Math every day. At the end of the week, everyone will take a multiplication quiz in an attempt to master a certain times table. If they get every question right, their marker will move forward one line on the field. If they miss any questions, they’ll have to take the same quiz the next week, and so on, until they get them all right. This week, the quiz was over 0’s and 1’s, so nearly everyone got onto the field. Yes, I did say nearly everyone (sigh). Poor Jessica, who thinks 0 X 8 = 12, is going to have to ride the pine for another week.
Catch you later,
Multiple Man

Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Signature Verification
Hey F-Man,
Yes, there probably will be some sort of prize, but I really don’t think that I can afford to give out Playstations to every child that scores a multiplication touchdown. What have you been smoking? Unless you are suggesting that somehow HPU is going to foot the bill?

And wow, your meeting sounds like it was a REALLY great time! I remember those things all too well. But don’t worry, I haven’t escaped it, we have just as many meetings here. At least there aren’t all the annoying industry buzzwords floating around in my meetings. Or at least not the same buzzwords. I thought if I heard Reggie use the phrase, “shift in paradigm” one more time, I was gonna have to strangle him. And all those acronyms! It’s bad enough that I now have to deal with TAKS day in and day out, but over on your end, you have Customer Focused Business Teams (CFBT); Rapid Thermal Application Process (RTAP); Consumer Retention And Protection (CRAP). It’s enough to give a guy acrophobia.

And speaking of phobias, your bud, Messy Marvin, is at it once again. He tried to pull one over on me today, but his ploy was pretty transparent. Always entertaining, though.

It all started yesterday, as we were taking a restroom break after recess. Mr. Mills, a second grade teacher, was reading Marvin the riot act. When I asked Mr. Mills what had happened, he told me that Marvin had said something terrible to one of the second graders. As soon as we got back to my classroom, I sat Marvin down at my desk with pencil and paper and had him write down what he had said. Here is what I got back, in Marvin’s own words:

In the hallway I said shout the fouk up. I said that to a little gril in the 2 Grad.

I am assuming that he meant “little girl,” not that he cussed out a George Foreman cooking implement.

Later, when the class was at P.E., I made a copy of Marvin’s testimony and sent it home with him, telling him to show it to his mother and to bring it back with her signature.

Today, I asked to see the note, and he pulled it out of his homework folder. When he handed it to me, it was all I could do to keep a straight face. His mother’s name was there all right, but it was printed, in pencil, and floating off the line at about a 30-degree angle. The “s” in the first name was backwards, and the last name was missing a letter.

Frankly, I’m surprised he hadn’t simply signed, “Marvin’s Mother.”

Once I had swallowed the giggles, I called Marvin out into the entryway to talk to him alone and told him that I wasn’t fooled. I asked why he didn’t show the note to his mother, and he responded in his high-pitched squeaky voice, “I guess because I just didn’t want to get into trouble.” Yeah, it’s a little late for THAT, ya little wing nut. At least now I have some evidence to hold on to for parent conference night next week.

In other news, Lucifer is no longer in my class. (And there was much rejoicing.) The paperwork from her old school finally caught up with her, and a mistake was found. She had been moved back to third grade here because she had never passed the TAKS reading test. However, her paperwork showed that she had been in special ed. in another district and thus exempted from even TAKING the test. So she has been moved back to the fourth grade. I’m sure Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Carpenter just love me right now.

And ya know, I already miss Lucifer. Kind of like I miss braces, college term papers, and movies headlined by Steven Seagal.
Talk to you later,
Mr. Focker

Date: Thursday, October 9, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Two names are better than one?
Hey bud,
Yes, I still have to attend meetings, even here. Staff meetings, grade-level meetings, committee meetings, etc. And I don’t think shouting, “There’s the Bat-signal! I must leave now!” and running out of a meeting will work here. Heaven knows it never worked for me at HPU.

I got a new kid in my homeroom today, and I can already tell that he is trouble with a capital “TRUB.” The lad’s name is Mark Peter, and though today was his first day in my class, it’s actually his second day at the school. He showed up yesterday after lunch, so he went straight to Mrs. Swanson’s class, where he promptly managed to get into a fistfight. With Francine, who has already taken up the mantle of our dearly departed Lucifer. So we’re already off to a fantastic start.

This morning, we had barely begun to go over our Problem of the Day when Mark Peter started moaning loudly that he couldn’t sit near Francine because they had been in a fight. They sit five seats apart from each other! But he threw a hissy fit like he was being forced to share a carousel pony with her. I haven’t witnessed a tantrum that bad since I had the cubicle next to Harold Dungan, who would try to beat his computer into submission whenever it didn’t please him. That was especially fun whenever I was answering an applications phone call and I had to try to explain the sudden stream of obscenities and impact sounds in the background. “Please excuse me, Mr. Potential Customer, while I ask my cubicle neighbor to kindly shout the fouk up.”

Later, Mark Peter started complaining that the girl who sits right next to him, Sally, was bothering him. Which was funny because Sally never bothers anyone. She doesn’t talk much; in fact, she hardly ever does much of anything. MP’s complaints were bogus, and he proved this by asking if he could be moved next to Thomson. Yeah, like I’m going to put THOSE two together. Why don’t I just throw together some gasoline and a few matches while I’m at it?

Perhaps MP sensed a fellow bully in Thomson, but he has yet to even learn his real name. All morning, he kept whispering, “Thomas! Thomas!” trying to get his buddy’s attention. Thomson acknowledged these attempts by glaring at MP and shushing him loudly.

Tomorrow is a designated staff development day (get your mind out of the gutter), so there will be no school. Because of this, today basically became Friday, and we gave our usual battery of tests. The first test that I gave today had twelve word problems and an accompanying bubble sheet for answers. Not two minutes after beginning the test, Mark Peter raised his hand and told me he was finished. I looked at his papers. He had twelve bubbles filled in on his answer sheet, and absolutely nothing written on the question sheet except for his name. When I asked him to show his work, he casually informed me that they had done this stuff at his old school, and this was how they did it. I told him that I like to see HOW he got his answers and asked him again to show his work. Not one minute later, I saw him pulling out some paper to draw a picture. I realize now that this probably IS about as much work as I can expect to see from him.

Later, I gave a test over shapes, which has been our topic for the week. The questions were nearly all of the variety, “Which of these shapes is a triangle?” with four pictures to choose from as answers. We are talking E-Z, as far as tests go. Yet MP kept calling me over to ask what the problems said. He couldn’t read these simple questions, yet he finished that first test — the one with all the tough word problems — in two minutes flat! I’m pretty sure that buzzing I feel in the back of my head is my Spidey-Sense going nuclear.

About halfway through that second test, the office buzzed me over the loudspeaker and asked that I send MP down there. When he came back a few minutes later, he grabbed up his backpack and stormed out. I went outside and tried to call him back, but to no avail. I later found out that he had been sent home because of yesterday’s fight.

Something tells me that Mark Peter is going to keep me on my toes. Or quite possibly, he’s going to keep me on Excedrin.
Later,
Ro Lades

Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: You’re a little big for the third grade, aren’t you?
Hey bud,
If you are really plotting a chart of all of my “Bad Data Points,” then you are a bigger nerd than I ever imagined. Somehow I doubt that you’ll end up with anything remotely resembling a normal curve or a six-sigma shift. And yes, I know that I have kids leaving and new kids popping up to replace them, but please tell Tom Winter to stop referring to my class as “A big whack-a-mole game.”

By the way, due to the behavior problems in my class, I have abandoned the five-table model for my desks. Now I’ve got rows and columns, with one desk by itself in the center of the room. That special seat of honor belongs to Mark Peter in the morning and Marvin in the afternoon.

I had an observer in class this morning, but it wasn’t another teacher or administrator. It was a child’s parent. More specifically, it was Alex’s father. He was the one who had a video camera on the first day of school and filmed his son for a few minutes. Thankfully, he was sans camera today. It was nerve-wracking enough just to have someone in there watching me, I didn’t need the extra pressure of wondering if it would be watched at home during family celebrations. “Happy Birthday, Gramma, now fast forward to the part where Mr. Woodson sneezes! Pause it!!”

Actually, Alex’s dad is pretty cool, and I didn’t mind having him there. He is taking a class himself, at a community college, I think, and it doesn’t begin until 9:30. So this may become a somewhat regular weekly occurrence.

I told him that he could come in and sit in the recliner at the back of the room. We did our usual morning routine — Problem of the Day, singing our 2’s and 3’s songs, Minute Math — and then we did a little reading out of the science books. I noticed that whenever I called on Alex to work a problem at the overhead or read from the book, his father sat forward a bit in his chair and nodded his head sagely. Alex, meanwhile, seemed to make a point of pretending that his dad was not there.

Our guest left a little after nine, when the class took a restroom break. He thanked me profusely and said he really enjoyed it. When we got back from the bathroom, we returned to our normal routine, and the beatings resumed. Just kidding.

That trip to the bathrooms also reinforced my impression that my kids are a bunch of rubberneckers. You see that plenty out on the highway, where drivers slow down so they can crane around and get a good look at an accident, or a parked police car, or a blade of grass. It slows everybody else down, and it’s incredibly annoying. Well, I’ve seen the same thing with children walking in line. Either they all slow down to see what’s happening in a classroom as we pass, or one or two kids don’t pay attention to where they’re going and wind up walking right into the person in front of them.

I need to carry around a walkie-talkie so I can report to the office when this happens.

“This is chopper 3, we got a six-child pile-up at the fountain in the fourth grade hallway. It’s blocking traffic in both directions. And there is water everywhere...”

Chest-beating to simulate helicopter blades is optional.

This week’s topic is measurement, so when we got back, we talked about inches, feet, centimeters, and the like. I may as well be speaking a foreign language or trying to explain the zeroth law of thermodynamics. Most of these kids think a pencil is measured in feet and a school bus is a few centimeters long. At least that makes me feel better about Jessica’s guesstimate from the beginning of the year. Maybe I should ask her how long she is and see if she says two or three inches.
Talk to you later,
Desi Meter

Date: Thursday, October 16, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: I gots mad parenting skillz
Hey dude,
Just FYI, certain visitors to the classroom are acceptable — students’ parents, visiting administrators, weird ladies hawking sensuous spectacles — and some are definitely NOT welcome. Tell Larry that he may not drop by and sleep off a hangover in the La-Z-Boy at the back of my room. That’s what the space under his desk is for!

Speaking of sleep, I am ready to crash. Not due to alcohol, though. Today was one of the longest days ever! I had morning duty (watching over the kids on the playground before school starts) and then we had parent-teacher conferences tonight, so I was at the school from 7:00 AM until 8:30 PM!!

From what I’ve heard from other teachers, conference night usually follows a pattern — the parents that you really want (or need!) to talk to DON’T show up, while the good kids’ folks DO show up. And our night lived up to that for the most part. As partners, Mrs. Swanson and I conferenced together, and we had scheduled conferences with the parents of Esteban, Sa’tun, Nathan, and Jessica, none of whom showed up. It was certainly nice to see Ariel, Christy, and Juan and their parents (all 3 unscheduled), but Kelly and I really have no issues with those kids, they are great. We had plenty of nice things to say about them. We also spoke with Sandra’s mom and Sofia’s mother, mainly emphasizing the importance of reading whenever they can for practice. They are both struggling academically, but both are good kids and pose no behavior problems.

Speaking of behavior problems, Marvin’s mom DID show up, and that was good. Kelly and I had a nice long chat with her. I showed her Marvin’s forged signature from last week and, as was expected, she confirmed that she had never seen that paper. She is very supportive, but kind of at her wit’s end over what to do with Marvin. I know the feeling. Marvin is supposedly on medication for the ADHD, but I don’t remember what his mom said he is taking. Whatever it is — Adderall, Ritalin, Percocet, Cheez-wiz, or Pepto Bismol — it ain’t workin’!

The highlight of the night, however, was when Chassity’s mother arrived. Chassity is a new student to 3E, she joined the class about two weeks ago. She’s not really bad, but she doesn’t put much effort into class work, and already her grades are really poor, especially in reading.

When her mom first walked into my portable, my initial thought was that she was a student. She couldn’t have been five feet tall, kind of squat like a fire-plug, and she was wearing a navy sweater and a plaid skirt — it looked like a school uniform.

We started the conference by telling her that we were concerned about Chassity because her reading level is way behind, she rarely does her homework, and she plays in class. Immediately, it became obvious that this lady was not really paying attention to what we were saying; everything she told us was designed to impress us with her parenting skills. She started telling us how important reading is to her and how she has always tried to instill that value in her children. At one point, she made this statement, and I quote:

“I reads all the time! I reads while I drives!”

Yeah, that’s not really something I needed to know, thank you kindly! I can just picture her driving down I-75, Herman Melville in one hand, steering wheel in the other (hopefully!), yelling “Calls me Ishmaels!!”

Before she left, she made one other mind-numbing proclamation. Earlier that day, in Mrs. Swanson’s class, Chassity had been caught writing a note to one of the other girls. The gist of the note was basically “You’re a witch. Who’s a witch? You are, you witch.” And on, and on. Only she didn’t use the word “witch,” instead preferring a more socially unacceptable rhyming word. Kelly and I had joked about the fact that nearly all of the words in the note were misspelled EXCEPT for that one word.

Well, when her mother saw the note tonight, she stared at it for a few moments before finally declaring, “Oh, so she wants to be cussing now. Well, I can tell you one thing. If she wants to be using this word, I will make darn sure she knows how to SPELL this word. I’ll have her write this word over and over till she gets sick of it.”

And the whole rest of the conference with Chassity’s mother is a blur. I just couldn’t concentrate due to one overwhelming question that kept running through my mind —
Lady, how exactly do YOU spell the B-word???
Later,
Fargin Icehole

Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Nom de Plume
Hey F- Bomm,
Thank you so much for all of your creative spellings AND for going above and beyond the call of duty by not limiting yourself to the B-word! I’m just glad I didn’t check my email at the school today. Sheesh.

And tell Larry to stop saying that my kids have a lot in common with the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Otherwise, I’m going to have to come up there and kick him right in the Emerald City.

Big news today: Mrs. Andrews told me that Lucifer continues to exhibit, shall we say, atypical behavior. She often lays on her back with her legs up in the air like a dead cockroach and won’t respond to anything. That’s Lucifer’s behavior, not Mrs. Andrews’. I guess the electroshock therapy hasn’t produced any results. Oh wait, we haven’t tried that yet. Never mind. Mrs. Andrews also told me that one day last week, she heard Lucifer humming at her desk and singing, “I hate Mr. Woodson... I hate Mr. Woodson.”

There’s truly nothing more rewarding than knowing you’ve made an impact in the life of a child.

Back to more mundane pursuits. Have you ever thought about going by your middle name? I mean using your middle name on a regular basis — to introduce yourself, sign your checks, order commemorative plates over the Internet, etc. I found out today that a couple of kids in my class have been doing just that. Using their middle names, I mean. Not ordering commemorative plates.

At lunchtime, Plakton was having trouble punching his ID number into the little computer in the cafeteria. Finally the lunch lady called up a menu on the screen that had all of the 3F kids’ names, so that she could manually choose his. I looked over her shoulder, searching for Plakton’s name, but I couldn’t find it. Finally I noticed his LAST name, but instead of “Plakton,” the first name was “Jobediah.” When I read this name out loud, Plakton informed me that Jobediah is his REAL name, but that he goes by Plakton, his middle name. I asked why he doesn’t use his first name, and he turned up his nose and commented, “I don’t like that name. It’s kind of weird.”

Sure, makes sense. I mean, why suffer the burden of a name like Jobediah when you’ve got Plakton sitting right there, ready to suit up?!?

Later, as we were getting ready to go to music class, déjà vu struck. Chita came up and asked me if I would start calling her Maria. Chita is the little sweetheart who asked me on the first day of class if I was tall enough to see the top of a refrigerator. It turns out that Chita is HER middle name, and she wants to start going by her first name again.

This reminds me of one time last year, during my student-teaching (in Mrs. Andrew’s class, coincidentally), when I discovered that this kid we had been calling “Trip Douglas” was really named Dwayne Edmundson. It came as a shock to me, because he signed all his papers “Trip,” and everyone called him “Trip,” so I had just foolishly assumed that his name was “Trip.” It wasn’t until we got the official materials on the day of the TAKS test, and saw this new name on the class list, that we realized he had been using a made-up soap opera name all along. Apparently, he was really dissatisfied with his given name, because whenever I called him Dwayne after that, he got pouty and would moan, “Don’t call me that! I hate that name!”

I only wish I had known to tell him, “Hey, it could be worse. You could have been named Jobediah.”
See ya later,
Montgomery

Date: Friday, October 24, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Greetings and Salutations
Hey dude,
I received emails from Nancy and Tiffany saying that you pulled off quite a feat this week. Getting a product through the Release to Production paperwork in record time! You’ll have to let me know how you got such a quick sign-off from Dick Lorenzo, the resident Quality (Reduction) Engineer. But congrats! Or, as my kids write all over their own papers — “Good jod!”

I had another one of those moments today where a child did something so shocking that it was almost funny. It should come as no surprise to find out that Marvin was the child involved.

Since today is Friday, we spent most of our day taking tests. The kids were spaced out around the room (in a physical sense, I mean, not mentally — although there are a few I wonder about), quietly working. After recess, a loud banging noise began, like someone was pounding on the side of our portable with a hammer. I went to the door and stuck my head outside, and there was a guy there, pounding on the side of our portable with a hammer! Actually, he was replacing some missing shingles on the underside, but making a huge racket. I told him that the kids were testing, and asked if he could come back in about an hour.

So he came back around 2 o’clock. By this time, the kids were all finished with testing, and we were cleaning up the room and getting ready to go to computer class. I started calling the kids by section to pack up their backpacks and get in line.
Marvin was one of the first in line, and when he saw the maintenance man outside, he called out, “Hello, asshole!”
Good ol’ friendly Marvin, he probably said it with a wave and a smile. I don’t know, because I didn’t actually see or hear him do it. I was still inside the main room with the sections I hadn’t called yet. What actually may be even funnier (or more shocking?) is the way I found out about it.

I learned what had happened from Maria. She’s the adorable little doll, standing about three-and-a-half feet tall, who used to go by her middle name, Chita. The last section was getting their backpacks together, when Maria, who had been right behind Marvin in line, came marching up to me and said, “Mr. Woodson, Marvin said ‘Hello, asshole,’ in a low voice.”

Now most kids, when tattling, will say, “He said a bad word,” or “She cussed at me.” Not Maria. She flat out quoted him.

Of course, Marvin had watched Maria with growing trepidation as she approached me, and I think that everyone in the room heard what she said. When I called Marvin back into the room and asked if he had indeed said it, the water-works had already started, and he cried, “I didn’t mean to!” I asked, “Let’s be clear — you didn’t SAY it, or you didn’t MEAN to say it?”

“I didn’t MEAN to,” he sniffled.

“How do you say something like that without meaning to?” I asked him.

He answered, “I don’t know...I said hello, and the other part just popped out!”

Great, so now in addition to severe ADHD, he’s got Turret’s Syndrome, too?!?

The moral of the story, of course, is that if you cuss out an adult, you have to stay in during computer class and answer questions out of the science book. Just like with the “shout the fouk up” incident, I had Marvin write down what he had said and why. Here is Marvin’s scribbling:

I said this helo assohle . I don’t know what I was thinking. It just poped out my moth.

And really, don’t you hate it when things just pope out your moth? Not wanting to send it home and risk another forged signature (I’m sure he’s been practicing since the last time), I called his mother after school and told her what had happened. To her credit, she didn’t laugh. In fact, I don’t think she found it very funny at all. Or, quite possibly, she hung up the phone and giggled till she wet her pants.

I don’t know about you, but I just don’t remember using much profanity in grade school. When we called each other names, they were childish nicknames of rear body parts and associated by-products. My parents told me one time that if I really wanted to call someone a name, I should do it intelligently and use big, sophisticated words. After all, I couldn’t get into trouble if the teacher didn’t even know what it meant. So at age 9, I started calling people “obsequious petards.” In layman’s terms, this translates roughly as “small farts.” I think if I heard any of my kids use the word obsequious in a sentence, I would give them an automatic A.
See ya,
Blue Streak

Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Lunch and Marriage
Hey bud,
I appreciate the article you forwarded to me from that “medical journal” website about ADHD and the new things they’re trying to cure it. However, this isn’t California, so I don’t think that anyone would approve of Marvin smoking marijuana in an attempt to settle him down. And frankly, your suggestion of slipping him some “special brownies” as a test could get me fired.

As a teacher, I only get half an hour for lunch, so I can no longer enjoy the luxurious full-service, sit-down banquets at fancy dining establishments, such as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Or what was that Indian cuisine place you guys always liked to go to? Eat Shi’ite and Thai? Too spicy for me.

I’ve been getting my lunch from the school cafeteria for most of the year. It’s cheap, plus the kind ladies in there usually load my plate up high. But every once in a while, I bring my own lunch. Today, I brought a clear Tupperware container of chicken noodle soup. Based on the kids’ reactions when they saw it, you would have thought I was handling a crucible full of liquid gold.

When I got the container out of my mini-fridge at lunch time, I heard murmuring, and one of the boys, in a state of near-rapture, exclaimed, “Whoa, check it out!” I think if I had stood before the kids and held my lunch up over my head, the kids would have fallen to their knees, proclaiming, “Soup! GLORIOUS Soup!!” These kids are really weird, man.

They’re also inherently curious. On our way to P.E. today, Sofia decided to grill me about my personal life. As I walked next to her and Pinar in line, I could tell from the whispers that they were up to no good. Sofia began with, “Mr. Woodson, are you married?” while Pinar giggled behind her. “No,” I replied. Without missing a beat, Sofia followed up, “Are you lonely?” While Pinar giggled even louder, and Sofia looked on expectantly and deviously, I just had to turn my head and start laughing. I couldn’t hide it.

Thankfully, within moments, we were at the gym door. I managed to stop laughing long enough to admonish Sofia not to ask such personal questions. She didn’t seem too deterred.

Kind of reminds me of the time last year when I was a student teacher, and one of the girls asked questions along those lines. She asked if I was married, I said no. She asked if I had any kids, I said no. She looked thoughtful for a second, and then said with finality, “Oh, so you’re JUST a teacher then.”

So now I have an epigraph for my tombstone — “Jack Montgomery Woodson: JUST a teacher.” Which of course we know is not true, I’m so much more. Teacher by day, super hero by night, couch potato by prime time. And of course, Devourer of the Golden Soup by lunchtime. All in a day’s work, my friend.
Talk to you later,
Miss Havisham

Date: Thursday, October 30, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Get me to the church on time
Hey bud,
Sitting around in my bathrobe, eating a pint of HaagenDazs while watching Oprah does NOT qualify me as lonely. Just because my last couple of dates haven’t panned out doesn’t mean I need to open up my home to all of the neighborhood cats just yet. Anyway, Sofia might change her opinion of me if she started hanging out with Miss Marsh’s kids more often. I think I’ve mentioned Stacy Marsh to you before, right? She and I went through the SMU program at the same time, we both did our student teaching here at the school last year, and now we’re both third grade teachers here. So we’ve become pretty good friends. She is engaged, and will be getting married in December. Her kids know that she is engaged, and they know that she and I are friends, but apparently they don’t have all of their details straight.

This morning, my class and Miss Marsh’s class happened to be out at the restroom at the same time, so we were chatting. One of Miss Marsh’s more inquisitive (nosey) students named Da’Neece came up to us and asked, “Miss Marsh, when you get married, are you going to change your name to Mrs. Woodson?”

I find it pretty humorous, but I think it makes Stacy mad. She told me that Da’Neece calls her Miss Woodson sometimes, when she wants to tick her off. Apparently, the girl has found a hot button. Go figure.

On a totally different topic, I think that after several months of trial and error, I have finally hit upon a decent system of maintaining discipline. It can easily be summed up in one word: Bribery. Sure, some teachers call it “Rewards” or “Incentives,” but let’s call a rose a rose, shall we? A while back, I went out and bought a bunch of kidfriendly goodies. Gel pens, colorful pencils and erasers, stickers, and other various sundries. These items were placed into a plastic basket, lovingly christened “The Treasure Chest.” Said Treasure Chest was then paraded around the room so all could catch a glimpse of potential happiness.

The delivery system, however, went through a few iterations. At first, when someone was, as they say, “caught being good,” I would write their name down on a little slip of paper and put the slip into a little basket. At the end of the week, I would pull three names out of the basket (in each class). The first name drawn would get to sit in my recliner for the rest of the class period. The second and third names would get to choose something out of my Treasure Chest — AKA “Prize Basket” — AKA “Bin O’ Bribery.”

However, stopping down the class to write down names on tiny pieces of paper didn’t seem to be the best idea, so I devised a new and more efficient delivery system. I went out and bought a roll of fair tickets (2,000 tickets for five bucks!), and now I give one to a child when they do something good, they write their own name on it, and they put it in the basket themselves.

Some of them go beyond putting merely their name on the tickets. Last Friday, I pulled out a ticket that contained Salma’s full name, address, telephone number, and school ID. I guess she wanted to be sure she got her prize. That girl is just a tad flaky. She actually takes pride in wearing a homemade T-shirt that reads, “Ditzy Spice.”

Our school already has a system in place of giving out red tickets to kids that are making good choices. MY tickets, however, are blue. If they’re going to earn prizes in my room, they need to have behaved well for ME. Some of the other teachers are a little over-enthusiastic about giving out these red tickets, and there have been times when Nathan or Esteban have come in brandishing 3 red tickets EACH! In my mind, it’s no good for them to be little hell spawns in my room, and then go cozy up to the librarian and come back with tickets.

This system seems to work pretty well, so far. It’s amazing how the mere mention of blue tickets can make the kids go from a noisy, amorphous crowd to a silent, militaryprecision line standing at attention. I hope this holds up!

Hey, you’re still going to Nancy’s friend’s costume party tomorrow night, right? Do you know what you’re going to be yet? We could always team up and go as Before and After versions of that Jared guy from the Subway commercials. I’ll be the After, but I’ll need a lot more pillows.
See you then,
Jack O’Lantern

Date: Monday, November 3, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: World Wrestling Education
Hey dude,
Great party on Friday night, eh? You seemed to be hitting it off with Little Red Riding Hood; any potential there? I finally got the nerve to strike up a conversation with that girl dressed as a corpse, but of course she had a boyfriend. It’s always the same. Why are all the dead ones taken?

Anyway, speaking of people in costume, I know what a big fan you are of professional wrestling. Right. Oh yeah, I must be thinking of somebody else. As I recall, you’ve given me hell for watching it sporadically myself. I’ll stick to the same reasoning I’ve always employed — I choose to be wellrounded. If I’m ever on Jeopardy! I’ll have a distinct advantage. Everybody knows Othello killed Desdemona, Caracas is the capitol of Venezuela, and Elvis and JFK are living together in Atlantis (paying rent to Big Foot!), but just how many people know whether or not The Rock gave a “People’s Elbow” to Triple H last week?

Another advantage is that I can understand what my students are talking about. Many of them watch RAW and Smackdown and talk about it, and though I don’t go into detailed discussions with them, I can at least follow the conversations.

Mark Peter takes it one step further. Instead of paying attention in class, or even attempting to work math problems, he routinely sits at his desk and makes hand gestures at other kids. In particular, a gesture made popular by a wrestler named John Cena. To perform this maneuver, you hold your right hand in front of your face as if you were examining the palm. Now, with your elbow acting as a pivot point, you move your hand left and right in an arc like a windshield wiper. The move is supposed to convey the message “You can’t see me.”

So Mark Peter sits at his desk and nonverbally tells the other kids that they can’t see him. I’ve heard of smash-mouth trash talking, but this is more “trash mime” than anything else. The funny thing is, most of the other kids are actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing, so they don’t see him anyway. Some would call that irony.

The really annoying part is that Mark Peter does this John Cena thing ALL THE TIME! It’s like a compulsion. In the classroom, in the line at restroom break, in the cafeteria. He may even do it to himself in the mirror, for all I know. I suppose I should be happy that Mark Peter is content to flash relatively benign hand signs, and that he hasn’t tried to pick anybody up and body slam them yet. Though I feel like that’s just around the corner.

I guess if I really want to capture his attention and get him to do his schoolwork, maybe I should treat school like a wrestling match. I’m going to start blaring my own personal theme song every time I enter the room. I’m thinking Pink Floyd’s, “Hey teacher! Leave them kids alone!” I’ll stomp around, beating my chest, yelling out math problems. Instead of grades, I think I’ll hand out title belts. My finishing move will be the Atomic Wedgie. And every once in a while, Mrs. Swanson might sneak up and hit me over the head with a steel chair. I’m sure the kids would love it. What do you think?
Later,
“Stone Cold” Jack Woodson

Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The Apprentice
Hey bud,
Wow! Why don’t you tell me how you REALLY feel? I always thought the ninth circle of hell was reserved for arsonists, thieves, and people who dress their dogs up in fuzzy little sweaters. Don’t go lumping all wrestling fans in there as well. I’m telling you, you should watch it some time just for the athletic skills these guys possess. Or better yet, to see the female wrestlers, and their, um, “skills.”

Speaking of athletes, my fantasy football team continues to find new and oddball ways of letting me down. This weekend, my tight end didn’t play because of — this was the listing on the injury report — “lacerated buttocks.” Just how exactly does one achieve lacerated buttocks?? Did somebody lose control of the cheese grater??

Anyway, on to the events of the day. For some reason, little kids are amazed when they find out that you actually have a first name. Maybe it’s because they’re used to calling adults Mister or Misses So-and-So, but when they discover a teacher’s first name, it’s this newfound source of wonder, like going to Disney World for the first time, or being in the presence of soup. Not that it takes any effort at all to find out our names. We all wear ID badges that have our picture and our full name on them. I wear mine hooked to my belt, so it’s about eye-level for most of my kids. Unlike my badge at HPU, I haven’t tampered with this one. So it really is a picture of me, and not the Flash, or Dilbert, or Ned Flanders.

A couple of weeks ago, out on the playground, Juan happened to notice my badge. He said, with that sense of wonder I mentioned, “Your name is Jack Woodson?” I answered, “Yes, and you can call me Mister Woodson.” Juan laughed and life went on.

Today we had a little bit of déjà vu. While standing in line for the restroom, a new student, Ja’Wane, noticed my badge. He asked the same question — “Your name is Jack Woodson?” This time, Juan, who was standing nearby, piped up and responded, “Yes, and you can call him MISTER Woodson!” Do I have these kids well trained, or what?

And while we’re on the topic, I discovered something disturbing during MY restroom break today. After school, I stopped in to the boys’ restroom in the sixth grade hall and stepped into the first stall. I often use this stall, from convenience, during my lunch break, and there is often a “present” inside. I’ll let your imagination run wild there, and I’ll just say that this present involves the act of NOT flushing.

Today, however, inside the toilet was about half a roll of wadded up, soggy toilet paper along with what I’d swear was a jump rope handle. I didn’t investigate any further to see if the whole rope was in there, instead choosing to take my business elsewhere.

My brother knows a guy at his workplace who cleans out porta-potties and chemical toilets. They’ve nicknamed him Blue Hand Luke. If it really was a jump rope, maybe the school will have to call him up to come out and clean up the mess. If the kids ask who he is, I’ll be sure they call him MISTER Hand.
And on that note, I will talk to you later,
Crapper John, M.D.

Date: Friday, November 7, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: I pledge something or other
Hey bud,
I agree that bathrooms can be hazardous wherever you go. I have would-be vandals, you have Larry. Does he still take pride in taking a magazine in there and sitting until he can’t feel his legs? OK, enough about this topic.

Yesterday and today were special days for a handful of kids in my homeroom. They got to do the morning announcements. Every morning at 8:00, the principal or one of the assistant principals comes on the public address speaker and lists the day’s events. Then two or three students step up to the mike and make a short statement about one of our “Pillars of Character Education.” The pillars are Trustworthiness, Responsibility, Respect, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. Can’t really make a good acronym out of that, I’ve tried. After the student announcements, everybody recites the Pledge of Allegiance and the Pledge to the Texas Flag, also known as the Mumbling to Whichever Wall I Happen to be Facing at the Time. Then we have a moment of silence before resuming the school day.

Our assigned pillar was Citizenship. Last week, we talked briefly about what citizenship means — the way you treat your community, basically — and I had the kids each write down what they would say if they made the announcements. On Monday of this week, I took up all the papers and selected the best four (of the ones I could actually make sense of). For some reason, everyone’s definition of good citizenship seems to stress picking up garbage. At least eight of the kids’ entries said, “I am a good citizenship when I pick up trash from the street.”

I got on my computer at home and typed out the four I had chosen and printed them so the kids would have something easily readable. Ariel and Xander went to the office yesterday, and they read their statements perfectly. I actually had to edit down Ariel’s essay; from a page and a half, I picked the best paragraph.

Today was a slightly different story. Lindsay and Tereelia were the honorees, and things didn’t go quite as smoothly as yesterday.

Mr. Locke, the Assistant Principal, read the daily messages, and then Lindsay was up first. Very energetically, she said, “Hi, I’m Lindsay, from Mrs. Swanson’s class, 3E! No wait, I mean 3E, Mr. Woodson’s class!” Then she went into a giggle fit for several seconds, punctuated by a loud, “WOOOOOOOOO!!!” Of course, the kids in the room with me thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

After that, there was dead air for a few moments, until Mr. Locke prompted Lindsay to continue. “Oh yeah!” she cried, followed by more giggling. Finally she read her message and the performance was complete.

Tereelia at least remembered what class she was from and what to read, but as usual, her voice was so high-pitched that I was afraid we would have dogs from all over the city swarming the school.

When the two girls returned to the classroom, Lindsay walked slowly and regally across the room to her desk, like a newly crowned Miss America, basking in her admirers’ love. Tereelia, on the other hand, grimaced uncomfortably and awkwardly sat down at her desk, looking lost. In other words, they both acted exactly the way they always do each morning when they enter my room.

The girls’ efforts certainly did not go unnoticed. I got some nice compliments throughout the day. Several teachers told me my kids were “special.” Recognition like that really warms the heart.
Later,
B. Fuddled

Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: You can’t say that on the school bus!
Hey dude,
Thanks for the essay, but I already know that you are a good citizenship since you clean up garbage in your cubicle. And no, you don’t get to do morning announcements tomorrow.

Third through sixth grade has started after-school tutoring on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 3:00 till 4:30. All of us keep 8 or 9 (or 20) kids that need extra help. Ms. Whitney, who is in charge of the really baaaaaad kids at the school (the ones who make Mark Peter and Francine look like, well, almost normal kids), also drives one of the buses that takes kids home. In addition, she drives the only bus for tutoring.

Today had gone well, tutoring had been productive, and all of the kids got on board the bus. All seemed right with the universe. The bus doors closed. The bus started to move forward. After traveling roughly six feet, the bus came to a screeching halt, the doors flew open, and Ms. Whitney stormed out, yelling my name. At the same time, she was shouting at someone to get off the bus. One of mine, it would seem.

Apparently Jorge had let slip one or two of those words that in our day, you didn’t even learn until the sixth or seventh grade, much less use in a large group setting, such as a school bus. Jorge and Marvin must be spending time together. Ms. Whitney was so mad that she refused to let Jorge ride home on the bus, and I think she wants that ban to last for the rest of the year. I’ll have to try to talk her out of that one.

In the meantime, however, Jorge and I had to do the walk of shame all the way from the bus stop to the office, where we called his home. Thankfully, a Spanish-speaking teacher that I am on good terms with happened by, and she spoke with Jorge’s mother, who doesn’t know any English.

I was hoping that the mother would come and pick Jorge up at the school. However, they don’t have a car and, according to the mother, it would take her about an hour to walk to the school. She has a bum leg, and there are busy streets to cross. So being the softy I am, I volunteered to drive Jorge home. Too bad my Spidey-Sense was on the fritz, not warning me of the potential ambush I was headed into.

When we got to Jorge’s apartment complex, there was a large group waiting for us. I’m trying to stay away from using the word “mob,” but that wouldn’t be far off. Jorge’s mother and his brother were there, but there were several other women and kids as well. Jorge got out of the car, and I rolled down my window as one of the women approached with a stern face. She started berating me, saying that her daughter had been on the tutoring bus and witnessed it all, and there had been a misappropriation of justice.

As she yelled, more people got interested in the spectacle. I observed a lot of other kids from the school who live in that complex, hanging out of upper-story windows. A lot of nearby adults — talking to each other, walking by, or standing around drinking beers — started giving me nasty looks. I was glad that I hadn’t put the car into park, because I was ready to put the pedal to the floor if things got any uglier.

The woman went on, saying that according to her daughter, Jorge wasn’t the one who had cursed, it was another boy, and he’s the one who should have been kicked off the bus. See, the funny thing was, Jorge had admitted to me on the ride over that he had in fact cussed, even telling me which words he had used. I told her as much. That silenced her pretty well, and it seemed to break a spell. The ominous gray thunderclouds retreated and the sun returned, passers-by resumed passing by, Jorge’s brother resumed picking his nose. And I left as quickly as I could. I feel a little bad about the cloud of dirt and pebbles my back tires threw up on the woman as I screeched out of there, but what are you going to do?

Actually, the situation was not nearly as perilous as I’ve made it out to be, but as you may have guessed, I really don’t want to have to take Jorge home every day after tutoring. I wonder if Ms. Whitney likes chocolate...
Later,
Jeeves

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: An Athletic Supporter
Hola Fredster,
No, no, no, my life was never in danger, I was merely using a bit of hyperbole (Latin for outright lying that is sometimes humorous). But you just can’t compare a customer visit as an engineer to a home visit as a teacher. The customer visits never seemed as nerve-wracking. Although those guys in Paris DID make me eat dead snails (and with no ketchup!), so maybe I should have been a little fearful for my life.

Today was an interesting, if awkward, day. Things seemed to be going well at first. We had done our Minute Math, listened to a few multiplication songs (complete with a Lindsay-led conga-line around the room), and I had just taught a mini-lesson on number lines. The kids were working independently while I was looking at some papers on my desk. All of a sudden, I heard rumblings coming from the other side of the room. When I looked over there, a couple of kids near Anita’s desk were giggling, whereas Anita herself had a look of total disgust on her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she answered, “Mr. Woodson, there’s a bra in my desk.” The way she said it was just dripping with contempt. The word “bra” came out as a two-syllable word — “Bra-uh.”

I walked over to her desk to take a look, and I saw that Anita had taken out the bra — with her pencil. Like a police investigator who doesn’t want to get fingerprints on a piece of evidence, Anita held out her pencil with the bra hanging from it by a strap.

Now Fred, I know that you haven’t seen too many bras in your life, not counting the one Larry wears, but this thing was tiny tiny. Wadded up, it fit completely inside my fist, and as it had looked in pretty poor condition, I threw it in the trashcan. Things got back to normal, and we switched classes at the usual time.

Mrs. Swanson’s class came in and got started on their Problem of the Day. I figured chances were good that the unmentionable in question had been left there by either Susan, who sits in Anita’s desk, or by Guadelupe, who sits at the very next desk. So I approached them, in full-on Columbo-meetsWoody-Allen mode, and quietly asked, “Did one of you... leave... something... in your desk yesterday?” (The ...’s are for the pauses where my brain worked in overdrive not to say something really embarrassing.)

Guadelupe looked puzzled at the question, but Susan flashed a sheepish grin and answered in the positive.

I think that’s when my composure started to break down. Seemingly vital questions sprang rapid-fire to my brain, but midway through, “Why aren’t you wearing it?” I realized that I probably didn’t really want to be discussing supporting garments with an eight-year-old. Still, “Why was it in your desk?” did escape my lips. This was answered with the standard “I dunno,” and a serene look that suggested that nothing could be more normal than to keep underwear in your desk at school. I masterfully took care of all future incidents with the admonition, “Just don’t put that stuff in your desk anymore, OK?”

Help me out here! This is not normal, right? I mean, nobody there at HPU keeps their briefs in their file cabinets, do they? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know.
Talk to you later,
The Wizard of Bras

Date: Friday, November 14, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Is it safe?
Hey Fred,
Thanks to you, I got three, count ‘em, THREE emails from people telling me that they keep underwear in their cubicles. All of them were joking, I’m pretty sure. At least I hope. The one from Nancy I didn’t mind so much. But the notes from Larry and Tom were a bit disturbing in their detail.

I’ve told you that there is a door in my room that leads to Ms. Hamm’s special education room, right? The kids constantly ask me what’s behind that door. I’m always tempted to answer, “I really don’t know. A couple of kids have walked through the door, but no one has ever returned...”

The latch on that door is not very good, so frequently the door will drift slightly ajar. Whenever that happens, without fail, Lindsay has to proclaim, “Ooooh, Mr. Woodson, it’s a ghost!” in her Scarlett O’Hara southern drawl. Most of the kids stop what they’re doing and stare bug-eyed at the door as if they’re expecting the Wolfman himself to walk into the room.

Hey, that gives me an idea. Maybe you could take a day off from work and come by dressed as the Wolfman. You could enter my room through the special ed. door and say, “Hey kids, stay in school! Don’t do drugs! And always practice good personal hygiene!”

And on the topic of personal hygiene, all of the children at the school were offered a free health service this week, which involved a dental screening and sealant application. Several of my students brought back their permission slips and went to see the hygienists today in the library. When they came back, they each had an information sheet for their parents, and I snuck a glance at them.

It was no great surprise to see the notation, “Sealant has already been applied. Nothing further necessary,” on Ariel’s and Christy’s forms. Overachievers as they are, they probably saw this as extra credit for their teeth. Alex’s came back with the note, “Could not apply sealant because child refused to stay in seat.” Apparently, he got a little spooked and wouldn’t let them touch him. Too bad his dad wasn’t sitting in on the class today.

The others — and there were three whom I won’t name here — came back with more startling notes on their papers. Nothing as cruel as, “This child could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence,” but disturbing nonetheless. On this document there was a simple graphic of a mouthful of teeth, and on each form, several teeth had been marked with an X. The X’s presumably indicated cavities, or chipped enamel, or other dental hazards. All three of these kids had at least four teeth marked, and one of them had EIGHT X’s! Now I’m no math teacher — oh wait, I AM a math teacher! That’s one out of every four teeth!! Accompanying these marks was the warning, “Could not apply sealant due to condition of teeth. Your child needs immediate dental attention!!”

Dire, ain’t it? Sure, I’ve noticed that most of these children’s teeth aren’t perfect, but this is a bit perturbing. It’s not like any of them are British; over there, I think they brush their teeth with pure cane sugar. I’ll ask Latya, he can probably confirm that.

It makes me wonder about the other children, though, those who weren’t screened. A lot of them probably need immediate dental attention as well. I’m sure the steady diet of Laffy Taffy and Hot Cheetos isn't helping.
Later,
Jack Plaque

Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Viewer Discretion Advised
Hey Fred,
You’re right, this week would have been a particularly good time to wear the Bubba teeth and scream, “I need immediate dental attention!” every few minutes. The sad thing is that we’ve had the weekend and 3 school days now since the dental screening, but none of these kids have been to see the dentist yet. Except maybe Christy, who doesn’t need it.

Oh, and I didn’t suggest a visit from Latya because I wanted the Wolfman, not Eddie Munster. Besides, when Latya speaks, the kids wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.

Now let’s jump from kids who need their teeth fixed to kids who need their mouths washed out with soap. Thomson, my wannabe hip-hopster, likes to rap. Or at least try. There have been several times when, right in the middle of a lesson, Thomson will suddenly do this kind of “pop and lock” motion, all the while muttering something under his breath. I’m sometimes worried that he’s having a grand mal seizure, but then I realize he’s just had a “rap attack.” And it’s usually while staring me directly in the eye, like he’s just waiting to shout, “You got served!” (I think I used that phrase correctly.)

Today we were taking a restroom break, and I heard Thomson mouthing the words, “She wants to slobber my knob...” He clearly had no clue what it meant. (Do you?) I told him that those words were inappropriate, and I asked where he had learned them. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had answered, “From that lady that came in to talk to us about glasses.” But instead, he told me he had heard a friend of his dad’s playing the song a few times. Hey a friend of his dad’s playing the song a few times. Hey year-olds!

And boy did I hear a doozy of a story today about bad influences! At lunch, Mrs. Fitzgerald was talking about a conference that she and Miss Lake had had yesterday with the mother of one of their little girls. A little girl who is quite overtly sexual, writing notes to a little boy in their class that say, “I want to lie in the same bed with you and sex you.” Anyway, the mother cried during the conference, and sobbed, “I just don’t know where she learns this behavior from! I don’t say these things! Maybe she gets it from Sex and the City, I just don’t know...”

That’s right. This lady lets her daughter watch Sex and the City and then wonders why she says the things she does. Meanwhile, we have a third grader spouting explicit lyrics at school, and a buddy film starring two serial killing monsters is the kids’ favorite movie. I’m not sure how many more signs of the impending Apocalypse I can take.
Talk to you later,
15 Cent

Date: Friday, November 21, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Crowd Control
Hey Big Poppa Heat Pump,
Regarding your attempt at rap: With lyrics like “All day long I’m makin’ big heat pumps, I got more rhymes than Forest Gump,” I’m gonna have to say don’t quit your day job.
How about this one:
Early to bed and early to rise, Makes it real hard to open my eyes.
I’ve been telling you about stuff that happens during the school day and even after (in the case of tutoring). But have I told you about anything that goes on BEFORE school? No, I’m not talking about my drive to work — even though I seem to be the only person in Dallas who actually goes 20 mph in a school zone. I mean AT the school.

The kids that ride a bus to school get dropped off starting at 7:20 each morning. Nobody wants them just milling about unsupervised (drawing on the walls, running with scissors, putting jump ropes in toilets), so some teachers volunteer for morning duty. This involves overseeing the kids on the playground, keeping them out of the halls, monitoring the breakfast line, and so on. The good thing about this is that we get paid extra for this time. The bad thing is having to be at the school earlier than I usually like to roll out of bed.

I agreed to do morning duty out on the playground every Thursday and Friday this year. It hasn’t really been that bad. Yes, it’s hard for me to climb out of bed that much earlier (I can only hit the snooze button four times instead of the usual ten), but it’s kind of fun because of the interaction with the kids.

When I wander over near the basketball courts, Ricky or Miguel or one of the other boys will shout, “Mr. Woodson, watch this!” as they attempt to heave the ball from roughly half-court. On the other side of the playground, I get, “Mr. Woodson, watch this!” from Lindsay or Laura, who are jumproping (far from the bathrooms). And for some reason, Mark Peter always feels the need to announce his presence to me. He runs up, jumps so he lands right in front of me, and goes, “TA-DAAAA!” If only there was some wrestling hand gesture that meant, “I can’t see you — so go away!”

Then there’s the Mr. Woodson Fan Club. These are the kids who come over and stick to me like glue the whole time I’m out there. Bet you didn’t know I had groupies. This crowd contains Pinar, Sally, and Rose. Sally and Rose also have little sisters who tag along. Guadelupe and Sandra sometimes join this group, but not always.

This morning, the fan club was in rare form. Francine of all people joined Pinar, Sally and Rose and their sisters, and they all kept linking hands to form a Maypole circle around me. I would occasionally slip through their ranks and attempt to continue walking around, but the circle would quickly reform around me. At one point, I told them a circle was too easy, and that they should try something harder, like a triangular prism. They just looked at me like I was crazy.

You know, I don’t see Francine much anymore except for the early mornings. She’s in Special Ed. now for math, so she goes to lunch and P.E. with my class, but the rest of the time, she’s in another classroom. I’m not complaining though, because from what I hear, she’s turned into quite a terror, even without Lucifer’s influence.

In other news, we’ve been having a canned food drive here at the school all week long. The kids have been doing a pretty good job of bringing in boxes and cans for less fortunate people. However, they don’t all seem to understand the concept of “non-perishable.” Today, Ralph brought in a can of pinto beans, a can of corn, and a box of generic tuna helper. All well and good. But he also brought in a loaf of French bread, a jar of pickles, and some grape jam with an expiration date of 8/03. I guess it’s the thought that counts, right?
Later,
Sal Monilla

Date: Monday, November 24, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Daily affirmation
Hey dude,
Thanks for the offer, but our food drive will NOT be accepting your half-eaten pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. Nice try. And anything that Larry has even touched can automatically be ruled out.

Today was a relatively uneventful day at school, brightened by a small piece of paper. At some point after lunch, Guadelupe gave me a folded up note. I was busy at the time, so I thanked her and stuck the note in my pocket. I didn’t remember it again until the school day was over and I was alone in my room.

Here’s what it said:

Dear Mr. Woodson, I want to tell you that you are a great teacher. You’ve been a nice teache this days, weeks, and months.
You are a good kind heart teacher.
Love,
Guadelupe

Isn’t that a sweet little note? Definitely something to go up on the refrigerator. I’ll post it right next to Marvin’s infamous forgery note. Plus, if I should happen to screw up or get laid off again, I’ll be able to use it as a reference for my next job. “Here’s what the class thought of me, Mr. Interviewer, and I know for a fact that Guadelupe spoke for the staff and student body as well when she expressed those sentiments.”

Are you planning on watching any football on Thanksgiving? Let me give you an update on our classroom football field. We’re up to the 7’s now in Minute Math, but there are only five kids who have reached that line on the bulletin board — Xander, Ariel, Juan, Victor, and Pinar. Others have had a much harder time getting out of the gate. Lindsay, Carlos, and Sofia are still on the 1-yard line, which means that they have taken the 2’s test SIX times now and still not mastered it. In a bit of good news, Jessica aced her test on Friday. Unfortunately, it was the test to get her TO the 1-yard line. It took her these six weeks just to get that far. Ugh.

Well, I’m gonna run now. Maybe I’ll shoot a quick line over to Tom Winter telling him he’s been a great engineer this days, weeks, and months. Heck, I might even throw in “years” just for good measure. That should make his day.

No school for us on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, so in case I don’t talk to you tomorrow, have a Happy Turkey Day!
Later,
Stuart Smalley

Date: Monday, December 1, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Tell me no questions and I’ll say you no lies
Hey Freddy Kreuger,
Yes, I added that last name today in honor of another fallen student and his favorite movie. Nathan has withdrawn from the school to try his luck as a professional squirrel whisperer. No, they’re moving to Houston where I assume he’ll rejoin the ranks of Texan 3rd graders. Here’s hoping, anyway.

Also, I plan on giving Jessica as many tries as she needs to move forward, even if she only gets to the 4’s by the end of the year (which she’s on pace to do). While I thought the idea was pretty darn funny, I have no intention of removing her jersey from the bulletin board, replacing it with a smear of chunky-style spaghetti sauce, and telling the class that she’s been tackled. I would have expected a suggestion like that from Larry, but it came from Tiffany? I am shocked!

I have another little anecdote to share with you about one of my Spanish-speaking kids. If you’ve spent much time around children (and some adults even), you may have noticed that many of them rely far too heavily on the words “said” and “told.” What I mean is that they will almost always use one of these words, instead of mixing things up with the occasional “replied,” “yelled,” “cried,” “whispered,” “belched forth,” “spat out,” etc. I’ve noticed that a lot of the Hispanic kids don’t even use the word “asked” when there’s a question. For instance, they say, “I told my dad if I could go to the movies, and he said no,” or, “My mom said if you could send another form home?” or, “I told Marvin, ‘Why do you have a fish stick on your face?’ and he said, ‘Shout the fouk up.’”

But today, I heard a new one from Jorge. At recess, he came running up to me and exclaimed, “Thomson told me idiot!”

I have to admit, that took me aback, and I didn’t immediately figure out what he was trying to convey. Seeing the blank look on my face, Jorge repeated his quizzical statement, “Thomson told me idiot! When we was in line! And he told me chicken, too!”

I think that if Jorge had started his claim with that last statement, I might have just assumed that he had contracted a speech impediment and was accusing Thomson of selling black-market poultry. But it’s hard to sell an idiot, so I had to think further. The light bulb finally flicked on over my head as I realized that he meant that Thomson had CALLED him an idiot!

No doubt, you’re “telling” me a moron right now for taking so long to figure it out, but I just think it’s bizarre. When you read this, go over to Tom Winter’s cubicle and say, “Woodson told me slacker,” and see how long it takes him to figure out what you mean. And while you’re at it, tell him loser for not coming out to poker night last week.
See ya,
Gentleman Teller

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Irritable Vowel Syndrome
Hey buddy,
One of my kids told me something today that brought to mind the WORST possible imagery, and I think I might be scarred for life. I know that I’m scarred for at least the next month. This is far worse than the time Larry shared his tips and techniques for plucking his chest hairs — over lunch, as I recall. Worse even than the description of your last girlfriend’s refrigerator contents. Thought I had forgotten, hadn’t you? No, those things pale by comparison to what came out of this eight-year-old’s mouth.

We had just switched classes, so it was about 11:00 in the morning. The kids were busy working on the problem on the overhead. I was walking around, observing the kids as they worked. Suddenly Plakton got out of his seat, came all the way across the room to where I was standing, and said, “Mr. Woodson, I gotta tell you something, secret-like.” I told him to go sit down and that I would be right over. When I made my way over to his desk, he motioned at me to stoop down so he could whisper something to me. (Cue the ominous music rising in the background.) No, he didn’t whisper, “The horror! The horror!” Though in retrospect, he probably should have. Instead, he proclaimed, with all seriousness, and not a little urgently, “My bowels be runnin’!”

Yeah, I’ll give you a minute to recoil from the screen. I had to willfully fight the urge to say, “What the hell does THAT mean?” Of course, I knew only too well what it meant. And this strange phrasing, coming from a kid who usually just declares, “I gotta use it,” made me decide rather hurriedly that Plakton was not bluffing. I practically pushed him towards the bathroom with the simple command — “GO!”

When he returned, everything seemed fine and normal again. Except that he was about 20 pounds lighter. No, I’m just kidding. But if the situation should ever present itself again, I’ll have a better response — “If your bowels be runnin’, then your feet best be, too!”

Sorry to go from an intestinal story to a success story, but while Plakton was struggling to control his innards, Ralph was conquering number patterns. That’s our topic for the week — 4, 7, 10, 13... What number comes next?

All day long, Ralph kept saying, “I get it! I get it!” After about the tenth time, I wasn’t really sure whether he was talking to me or talking to himself, shades of The Little Engine that Could. I’m really proud of him, because while kids like Rafael, Kari, and Tereelia grasp these concepts easily, Ralph really has to work at it. And he’s not always willing to work at it. So it’s great to see him get a shot of selfconfidence. Unlike Plakton, who apparently needs a shot of Immodium.

Well, that’s the news from this side. How’s the new design going? If you’re still having trouble with tooling issues, you might want to talk with Darrin. If you can look past the constant hitching up of his Sans-a-belt pants and his not-sosubtle racial jokes (such as always declaring, “Nobody called for a taxi!” whenever Latya walked into the room), that old man is a wealth of knowledge.
Your pal,
Turd Ferguson

Date: Thursday, December 4, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Birthday wishes
Hola, amigo!
Sorry if I put you off your lunch yesterday, but at least now you have a new phrase guaranteed to get you out of status meetings. Use it wisely, my friend.

Today was Mrs. Swanson’s birthday. She is obviously beloved by the kids because several of them brought in balloons and cards. Krissy, Salma, and Laura, who are in her homeroom, came over to my room right before the day started and tried to enlist my help in some sort of birthday surprise. I was supposed to lure Kelly away from her room so that the kids could work their magic. I’m afraid I didn’t help them much.

At around 8:30, I called Kelly on her cell phone and told her there was something she should come over and see. She let out an exasperated sigh and said that the kids had been trying to get her to come to my room all morning. She sounded very annoyed. “Do I REALLY need to come over there?” she asked. I decided then that the kids were on their own. “Um...not really,” was my reply.

Later, she told me that the kids had gotten her out of the room somehow anyway and then closed the door, locking her out. When she finally got back in, the kids were all hiding behind tables and bookshelves — except, of course, for the one who had to come and open the door for her — and they jumped out and shouted, “SURPRISE!”

Yes, I’m sure she was stunned, had no idea whatsoever that they had all gathered there in her honor. But at least the kids seemed pleased with themselves.

More fun later in the day. Usually, Kelly is the one from our grade-level who collects money and then goes out and buys a card and gift for the birthday person. But this being her birthday, and me being her partner, I had volunteered to do that duty this time. So last night, I got her a card and a gift certificate from one of those candle, soap, and handbag places. To Infinity, and the Bathroom and Beyond, or something like that. Don’t worry, I got you a lovely cucumber-honey loofa; I know they’re your favorite.

Before sending the card around to the other teachers, I wrote my own birthday wishes, and then I added a few extra signatures. One said, “Have a grout day, Msis Swasnsn. Louve, Marvin.” I also wrote, “You can’t see me. Happy birthday from your favorite student, Mark Peter.” Fortunately, Kelly got a kick out of that.

See, I miss that aspect of the job at Heat Pumps — the card signings, where even though there were only about ten of us that would sign a card, somehow fifty signatures and comments would turn up. I don’t yet know the people here well enough to know if writing, “Hope the operation is a success!” or “Sorry to hear about your poodle’s run-in with the school bus!” on a birthday card would be considered funny or offensive. And do you remember what Latya wrote in Larry’s birthday card a few years ago? “Meet me out back at 8:00, Honey Buns. Love, Ron Philby.” That probably wouldn’t play too well here, which is a shame.
Miss the gang there,
Hallmark Hacker

Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: What a day for a picnic
Hey,
Thanks for letting me know Tiffany’s birthday was last week, I’ll have to send her an e-card. And thanks for forwarding on some of the comments on her card. Let me guess, Larry was the one who wrote, “You are now legal in 15 states!” even though she turned, what, 25? Whenever his bday comes up, please do me a favor and write, “Congratulations! You’re almost as old as your waist size!” and sign my name.

Today was an interesting day. To start with, each of my classes got a new student. Then just before lunch, I had to handle a little situation between two kids who are normally not problems at all — Krissy and Ricky. When I had them sit down and write what had happened, this is what I got from Krissy:

I called him a big facts mokey becaus He tolld me to shetup littel girl so I called Him big Facts mokey...

She actually wrote a lot more, in one big run-on sentence, but I think I’ve captured the salient points. I’m just glad that missing ten minutes of recess made them each see the error inherent in telling someone to shut up or calling someone a big fat monkey. Or a big fast smokey.

I also gained a little more insight into the enigma wrapped in a conundrum surrounded by a fruit roll-up that is Mark Peter. We were going over last night’s homework, which was on the topic of temperature. Each problem had a drawing of a thermometer and then the question, “Which activity would you do when the thermometer looks like this?”

On the first one, the thermometer read 30ºF, and the choices were:

A. Go on a bike ride

B. Go to the beach

C. Go on a picnic

D. Go ice-skating

Right now, the kids are pretty good at reading the thermometer, but they don’t really have a sense of what the reading means. They don't know if 30 degrees is hot, warm, or cold. So several of them chose answers a, b, or c. However, when we went over the answers, and I convinced them that 30 degrees Fahrenheit is COLD, below freezing even, most of them changed their answer to ice-skating.

Most, I said. Not Mark Peter. He kept insisting that he and his family routinely go on picnics when it’s thirty degrees outside. Even when it’s snowing! Yes, I know because I asked, just to be sure. They picnic in the snow. Right.

This kid is one textbook short of a class set. One Pokemon card shy of a deck. One crayon short of a box. And perhaps one snowball shy of a picnic?
Stay cool,
Willard Scott

Date: Thursday, December 11, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Round up the usual suspect
Hey bud,
Stop being such a nerd. Yes, 30 degrees CELSIUS would be decent picnic weather (though a bit on the hot side), but that is not why Mark Peter insisted on that answer. Did you miss the part about the snow? We were definitely talking Fahrenheit here. He’s just a goober.

MP’s parents don’t have a phone, so we can’t call them to discuss his behavior, and they don’t have a car, so they don’t visit the school very often. Somehow, any notes that we send home fall into a black hole, so Kelly and I paid a visit to his apartment after school. I had been to their apartment once before, a few weeks ago, when I had had enough of his behavior, but this was the first time for both of us. Today, it was Kelly’s turn to get fed up, and I tagged along.

We got to the apartment and knocked on the door, and Mark Peter’s father let us in. He didn’t look too happy to see us, but then I suppose he knew that we probably weren’t visiting to announce that his son had won the class citizenship award.

Have I mentioned that MP’s parents are HUGE? MP is taller than average for his age, but his dad is about my height, 6’4”, and his mom is even taller! Maybe it’s due to size intimidation, but MP seems to be a completely different boy when he’s in his parents’ presence. At school, he’s a loud, obnoxious bully, but when his father asks him a question, suddenly everything is “Yes, sir — No, sir.” Also quite the opposite is his voice; at school, it is belligerent and arrogant, but at home, it is subdued and high-pitched — like Mickey Mouse on Prozac.

One of the first things his dad said to us today was that MP had told them Mrs. Swanson and I had been out sick for the past few days. This came as news to us since Kelly’s last absence was about three weeks ago, and I haven’t taken a day off all year. The really odd (and disturbing) thing was that despite the fact that we were standing right there denying this, MP continued to insist that we had not been at the school.

During the course of our visit, MP’s mom mentioned the weather and how it was starting to get cold. I couldn’t help myself, and I replied, “Yeah, it’s almost picnic weather.” As I expected, she just stared uncomprehendingly at me.

Thankfully, Mark Peter’s parents are not the types that believe their child can do no wrong and who take their child’s every word as gospel truth. They’ve obviously been around the block a few times and know that MP’s stories are not always entirely accurate. When we got to our most recent concerns (our list of grievances), Kelly told them that some items had been stolen from her desk, and she suspected that MP had been the culprit.

Mark Peter immediately exclaimed, “I didn’t take those red tickets!”

(In the poker world, we would call that a “tell.”)

I think we all realized what had just happened, but I was the first to say anything. “Mark Peter,” I said, “Mrs. Swanson never said anything about red tickets. She said some things were taken, but she didn’t say what those things were.”

I’m not sure if MP knew he had trapped himself, but his parents sure did. They started questioning him, and he FINALLY admitted taking some tickets and a few other things from Mrs. Swanson’s room. He must have a predilection for tickets, because a few weeks ago, he stole some of my blue tickets as well. I was able to nail him right away though, because he had torn them right off the roll, ripping one ticket in half, and leaving the other half on the roll. When I saw half a ticket with Mark Peter’s name on it, it was kind of a dead giveaway.

Actually, for being guilty of theft, MP got off pretty easy. When my brother was much younger, he had a friend named Kyle who took things to the extreme. One time, when a playmate grabbed up one of Kyle’s Transformer toys and wouldn’t give it back, Kyle picked up the phone and dialed 911!! BOOM! Way to lay down the hammer, Kyle! Needless to say, Kyle’s unique brand of vigilante justice did not go over well with his mother, and I think the 911 people actually put him on their “Do not call” list.

At least we didn’t call the cops on Mark Peter. All we did was tattle on him to his parents. They seem very supportive of us, and they control him pretty well at home, but somehow I doubt that we’ll see any real change in class tomorrow.
Later,
Sheerluck Holmes

Date: Monday, December 15, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Tales of a third grade roughing
Hey Fred,
Yes, I had seen that email before, about America’s dumbest criminals. I especially like the guy who gave the store clerk a $20 bill to get the cash register open, and then ran off with the $10.85 from the register — leaving the $20 bill behind! I have no doubt Mark Peter will one day make this list.

And speaking of our pal MP, he is in big trouble yet again! Last Friday, I dropped my class off at the art room and ran into Mrs. Swanson, who had just dropped her class off as well. She told me that MP was in Mrs. Andrews’ room, and that she was going to see him, so I followed her. As we walked to the fourth grade hallway, she told me why our angel was in another room.

Apparently, during recess, MP threw Jessica down to the ground out on the field. As a quick measure, Kelly took him down to Mrs. Andrews’ room to stand in a corner. By the way, Lucifer has left the building (and the school), so I am once again on Mrs. Andrew’s good list.

We got to her classroom and took Mark Peter out into the hallway for questioning. At first, his sole defense of his actions was, “We was playin’ football!” Over and over, as if that excused any misbehavior. Finally, trying a different tact, I asked him, “Was Jessica holding the football when you tackled her?” I wasn’t really surprised when he silently shook his head. When I asked him why he didn’t at least tackle the person WITH the football, he informed me, quite naturally, that there was no football. Amazed, I said, “So you weren’t playing football, you were playing tackle, and you, a big, tall boy, decided to tackle the smallest little girl out there?” He stared at me, wooden-faced, for a full ten-count before finally declaring, “But we was playin’ football!” I only wish I had been carrying something yellow in my pocket that I could have thrown at him, penalty-flag-like.

Kelly and I decided to suspend him for three days at home. We wrote up a discipline sheet and put it in the outgoing mailbox, with the knowledge that it wouldn’t get to MP’s parents until Tuesday or so. We gave MP a copy of the form to take home, with the knowledge that it would probably NEVER get to his parents. Remember that they don’t have a phone, so we couldn’t call them. We also made it very clear to MP that he was not to come to school this week until Thursday. We probably should have made another home visit to tell his parents, but after having just been there the night before, we were hoping things would just work out the right way. How very foolish of us.

This morning, guess who showed up on my doorstep, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I stopped him in the doorway and reminded him that he was supposed to be at home. The discipline form was crumpled up at the bottom of his backpack. I sent him down to the office to ask one of the assistant principals to take him home. I should have taken him to the office myself, or at least called ahead, but I got swamped with other things.

At lunchtime, one of the other teachers mentioned that they saw Mark Peter going to lunch with Mrs. Andrews’ class. I went down to Mrs. Carpenter’s room, where all of the fourth grade teachers eat (and where the lunch detention kids stand in corners) and sure enough, there he was. Mrs. Andrews told me that MP had shown up at her door this morning and told her that I wanted him to stay in her class for another day.

Needless to say, I was a bit miffed. I drove MP home myself, after one of the teacher’s aides agreed to watch my class. MP’s father was surprised to see us, as he of course had no idea what had been happening. I had to explain the tackling incident as well as the three-day suspension, which will now be starting tomorrow.

I think that our boy Mark Peter is mere millimeters away from getting himself sent to DAEP, which is the District Alternative Education Program (aka the School for Wayward Miscreants). I would say he’s skating on thin ice, but knowing his predilections, perhaps I should say he’s picnicking on thin ice.
Later,
Warden Woodson

Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Mad Libs still rule
Hey buddy,
You’re right, I made a lot of assumptions with Mark Peter the other day — assumptions that he would do what I asked — and they didn’t quite pan out. You know what they say about people who assume. But I didn’t take him down to the office myself because I really did get busy with the class, not because I was drinking too much egg nog, as you imply. ‘Tis the season, but there are still two more days to go before I can do the Nog.

Enough about problem children; let’s talk about problems of another sort. Since so much of the third grade math TAKS test deals with word problems, we practice them every single day. We’re at a point now where we want the kids to start writing some word problems of their own, in the hopes that thinking up their own will help them better understand the reasoning behind other problems.

The children are not quite ready to put together their own problems without any help just yet. I’ve seen a few try, and they look something like this:

Tommy had 25 cents. Jenny had 34 cents. How many more total dollars did Tommy each have left?

Not a horrible start, but not exactly what I’m looking for. They’re using clue words like Dick Lorenzo uses teeth whitener — to ridiculous excess. So I started them off with a story frame. A story frame has most of the problem already written out, but the kids get to put in some of their own information. Here was today’s frame:

_________(Name)_________ the Bear was collecting acorns. He picked _________(Number)________ acorns from one tree, and then he picked _________(Number)________ acorns from another tree. How many acorns did he collect altogether?

Turns out that the biggest hurdle to overcome in this new exercise was the name slot. The kids had no problem whatsoever thinking up numbers to fill in, but some of them took nearly ten minutes to come up with a name for the bear! I collected the papers when we were done, and between the two classes, there were some interesting choices. Some were alliterative like Billy the Bear and Buzzy the Bear. Some were fellow classmates — Rachel the Bear, and Carlos the Bear. There were even two or three kids that chose Mister Woodson the Bear. (I smell extra credit!!) The strangest choice of all (at least from my perspective) was Sally’s. “Mr. Woodson” apparently was not specific enough for her, so she had “Jack Woodson the Bear” out collecting acorns. Hmm... I might need to send my apprentice, Juan, over to have a little talk with her about that.

Over on the numbers side, the choices ranged from lazy to over-achieving, but mostly they were in the reasonable range. Not surprisingly, Jessica had her bear picking one single acorn from each tree, while Marvin went to the other extreme and loaded the trees up with 999,999,999 acorns each. Except that in a slight case of dyslexia, it came out as PPP,PPP,PPP acorns.

Before I go, let me leave you with another story frame, and you fill in the blanks:
___(Name)___ the engineer still owes me those ___(Number)___ bucks I loaned him for dinner last weekend.
Later,
Yogi

Date: Friday, December 19, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: How the Grinch stole Christmas vacation
Hey bud,
I’m sorry sir, but I refuse to fill in your “adult-themed” Mad Libs. I’ll give you a verb or a place name, but the slots are not supposed to be labeled “Body parts that rhyme with rubies.”

Unless I’m mistaken, we have something in common — we both have some time off coming! You have to work next week, but the plant still shuts down between Christmas and New Year’s, right? That hasn’t changed, has it? First day of school in the new year is January 6th, so all of my little Whos will have a nice two-week break in which to forget everything they’ve learned so far.

Today was fun, with a tint of sadness. The sad part is that today was Ariel’s last day here. She and her family are moving to some small town I’ve never heard of, about two hours east of here. As I’m sure I’ve told you before, Ariel is one of my favorite students, and I am really going to miss her.

But as I said, the day was fun, because we did Christmas activities. Mrs. Swanson made ornaments with the class over in her room. They were little construction paper cutouts with glitter and a picture of the kid glued to them. They even made one for me. My tree can be complete now!

Meanwhile, I made stockings (or attempted to make stockings) in my room. Each child cut a couple of stocking shapes out of brown paper lunch sacks using templates I made last night. Then they punched holes along the edges and used red yarn to hold them together. Sounds easy, right? Well, it WAS easy — up until the point when we actually began.

By the time the day was done, a few of the kids had beautiful stockings and were decorating them with crayons and stickers. Kari, Xander, and Maria all had stockings that looked fantastic. Others had tried to punch holes in their two cutouts separately, and the holes weren’t lining up. And then there was Plakton, who was still trying to figure out how to use the scissors. Don’t worry, I kept a close watch to make sure he didn’t poke himself in the eye with them.

My own big problem was with the yarn. I will freely admit that I use yarn about as frequently as I use hair extensions — not often — so I had a rough time. I would start pulling on a strand and get it a ways out, but then it would start knotting up, and I was stuck untangling knots for much of the day. A couple of times, I had to send a kid with the skein over to Mrs. Swanson’s room, and she would send it back straightened out (the yarn, not the student).

I even had my own little Tiny Tim moment. I got a Santa hat from one of the teachers (my Secret Santa) earlier in the week, and I wore it for most of today. When I put it on with 3F, Marvin exclaimed, “Yay! Mr. Woodson is cool now!” Did you catch that? Marvin finally thinks I’m cool — not quite the same as throwing away crutches and walking, but a Christmas miracle all the same.

Some of the kids even brought me gifts. Not one hundred dollar bills, as I had hoped for, but sweet gestures nonetheless. Kari and Susan gave me candy with decorative holders, Juan gave me a nice little picture frame, and Alex gave me a card. I think at some point Thomson may have even given me the finger.

Well, in case I don’t see you before then, have a very merry Christmas! Tell all the good gentiles there the same from me. Oh, and feel free to drop by on the 23rd. We’ll be having our annual “Good Ol’ Fashion Woodson Family Christmas Movie Marathon.” ™ This is the night we watch as many Christmas-themed movies as we can stomach. We always watch It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, and Christmas Vacation; the others are rotated in and out. Round about 3 or 4 AM, when everyone else is passed out on the floor, my brother and I usually put up Die Hard. Hey, it’s a Christmas movie!
Ho ho ho! (Now I have a machine gun)
Good King Wenceslaus

Date: Thursday, January 8, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Naming rights
Yo Freddy!
I’m BAAAAAAAAACK! I know you guys have been back at the plant for almost a week now, but we just started back again. We had a “teacher prep day” on Monday (a delightful opportunity to sit in a freezing cafeteria and wish we were still on break!), and then Tuesday was the first day of class in the new year. We’ve slowly eased back into that whole learning thing — don’t want any heads exploding after a two-week hiatus.

I do have to say though, I missed my kids over the break. Sure, it was nice to sleep in till 3 every day, but things were getting almost boring without Marvin around to rock the casbah.

I learned over break that my partner Kelly is pregnant. I asked her husband Frank if they knew who the father was, and he said they were checking into it. Nancy told me that Wendy from purchasing is pregnant as well, so please congratulate her for me. And I have a precautionary tale that you might want to pass on to her. I wouldn’t want the same fate to befall her child that befell my newest student.

Harry just enrolled in my homeroom Tuesday. Today I received his cumulative file from his previous school. This is sort of like the dreaded “permanent record” kids are always being threatened with. Strangely, instead of saying “Harry,” the stickers on the front of the file said “Baby Boy.” I thought that was a bit odd, so I walked down to Jenny’s office to ask her about it. Jenny is our records person, and she enrolls all of the kids.

Jenny told me that she had spoken with Harry’s mother when she was here on Tuesday. The story is that soon after Harry was born, his mother noticed a bracelet around his wrist that said “Baby Boy” along with her last name. She figured that somebody must have already named her child, and apparently the name was agreeable with her!

Harry actually went by Baby Boy up until about a year ago, presumably when an observant second grade teacher had a conversation with the mother. I’m sure it was a very short conversation: “You mean? Of course! D’OH!” I suppose it could have been worse. His first name could have been “First Name.” (Or “Jobediah”)

The thing I’m curious about now is, did this mom really rename her child “Harry,” or did she just look at the top of his head and start calling him “Hairy?” Either way, be sure to tell Wendy to have a name ready in advance.

One last piece of news that I know you’ve been waiting to hear. My Fantasy Football season wrapped up over the break, and I came in third. My dad’s team, Rebel Yell, won the Super bowl, while my brother Zack’s team, Margaritaville, came in second. But my Absolut will win it all next year, this I vow! Oh, had I mentioned that we all named our teams after brands of alcohol? Let me know if you want to join our league next year — there’s still room for a Wild Turkey.
Talk to you later,
Male Caucasian Woodson

Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: LOCK DOWN!
Hey bud,
Thanks for passing the warning on to Wendy, and tell her hi right back. Those are some lovely names she has picked out, and I’m glad she’s already put some thought into it. But you might want to tell her to bring a Sharpie to the hospital just in case...

Yesterday marked the first day of third grade “Lock Down.” The students had it pretty easy in 2003, but now it’s time to release the hounds, turn the searchlights on the electric fences, and start rationing water.

Wait, that would be a PRISON lock down. Our lock down is a kinder, gentler version. Our version of lock down refers to the time between 8:00 and 10:00 that is devoted strictly to TAKS reading preparation. Even us math teachers are in on it, going over reading strategies for those two hours each morning. To further this goal, all of the third graders have been split up according to their reading ability, from great to poor.

In the past, I think they used to name these groups like they were sports teams. When the theme was birds, the great readers were the Eagles, the average readers were the Robins, and the poor readers were the Buzzards. When the theme was trees, the high group was the Redwoods, the middle group was the Maples, and the low group was the Charlie Brown Christmas Trees. For some reason, I guess that had a negative effect on self-esteem. They don’t name the groups anymore.

The math teachers got the highest groups of readers, while the reading teachers have taken the struggling readers. My group consists entirely of great or near-great readers. This is nice in a way, but while the reading teachers are probably thinking, “How can I help just one of the kids in my group pass?” I can’t help but think, “What if just one of the kids in my group DOESN’T pass?”

The reading teachers have put together packets of TAKS-representative reading passages and questions, so all of the prep work has been done for us. I let the kids have a while to read a few stories and do the questions, and then we read them aloud and check the answers together. Understandably, my group has a much smoother time at it than the lower groups, for whom each question is a real challenge.

There are a few familiar faces in my group, which is nice. Juan, Victor, Sofia, and Sa’tun are in with me. I recognized most of the others, but they were new names for me to learn.

There is one boy in my group, Allan, who is a little odd. Whenever he misses a question, he exclaims, “Tartar sauce!” I suppose there are worse expletives he could use, but condiments do not often come to mind when I get upset.

Lock down will continue until the TAKS reading test, which is on March 3rd. Except for Fridays, when we’ll be back on our normal schedule. After March 3rd, we may shift to a math version of lock down. Only I’d like to come up with a better name for it than math lock down. Maybe The Texas Chainsaw Mathacre? Of course, they’d want to change “Chainsaw” to “TAKS,” but it might still be cool.
Later,
Mathter of Ceremonies

Date: Thursday, January 15, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Mass exodus
Hey bud,
Thorry, I’ll loothe that nathty lithp right away... And thanks for filling me in on Sponge Bob Square Pants! I’ve heard of him, and I know what he looks like — Miss Lake’s classroom is wall-to-wall Sponge Bob paraphernalia — but I’ve never watched an episode. So I had no idea that he exclaims, “Tartar Sauce!” when he gets upset. That explains a little bit of Allan’s weirdness, but there are still many, many unanswered questions.

Have you guys had any recent lay-offs there at the plant? Because it feels like we have here at the school. Kelly and I together have lost eight kids in the last week. When I say we lost them, I don’t mean misplaced, like they’re hidden away in some custodial closet. These kids have all moved to other schools and/or cities. If this was college and they were going pro early, the loss wouldn’t be so great, but that’s not the case here.

A large percentage of our recent loss is due to the fact that one of the apartment complexes that our kids live in is being demolished to make way for a new high school. That’s right, they’re razing an entire set of apartments. Somewhere, the Vogons are rejoicing. So anyone who lived there has had until the end of this week to find somewhere new to live. As a result, Marcus left last week, and today was the last day for Rachel, Clark, Tiara, Laura, and Don. If you’re scratching your head and saying, “WHO??!?” don’t worry — some of these kids just enrolled! Rachel and Tiara gave me big hugs before they got on their buses after school, and both said they would miss me. I was sorry to see them go.

Ricky left on Wednesday — his family just decided to move. He was one of my best students, very smart, very well behaved, and I really wish I could have more like him. His brother Ernie in the fifth grade is completely the opposite — lazy, rude, and ignorant. He was in Mrs. Andrew’s class last year, when I student taught. I remember taking a stink bomb away from Ernie on my very first day at the school. The fifth grade teachers are probably out doing celebratory shots right now.

Speaking of celebrating, Kelly and I do have one reason to be happy. That reason is the eighth student that left — none other than Mark Peter! Today wasn’t actually his last day; we haven’t seen him since last Friday. But I found signed withdrawal papers in my box today and a note saying that he and his ginormous parents had moved up north. Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say. Kelly and I performed a very solemn John Cena “You can’t see me” hand gesture in his honor.

This brings the revolving door that is my class to 17 students, and Kelly’s to 19. It’s actually easier to teach with a smaller group, but I was very sorry to see some of these kids leave.

Of the kids that are left, we have had some Multiplication Touchdowns scored! Juan and Victor were the first to reach the 10’s last week, and today, Kari crossed the goal line as well. As a prize, I went with bottles of bubbles, and that seems to have been a popular choice. Poor Jessica is still on the 1-yard line, but a lot of the others are getting close to the 10’s.

There’s no school tomorrow — it’s another staff development day. You want to meet for lunch? Anywhere’s fine with me, except for that Chinese Pizza and Catfish place, right next to the Jiffy Lube. I’m pretty sure they have some kind of oil exchange program going on between them.
Later,
Little Bo Peep

Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Nice to meet you, Barry
Howdy dude!
I already told you, the term is “mobility-rate.” NOT turnover, not reduction in force, and certainly not casualties. But that’s right, no more tales of Mark Peter beating up on little girls or hiding his report card in the bathroom, because MP has left the building. And according to Frank Swanson, MP’s little brother in the first grade was even worse! I shudder to think!

We’ve been in school now for what, about five months? And some of these kids still can’t get my name right! It’s one thing for them to call me Mrs. Swanson. I figure they probably slip up and call her Mr. Woodson just as often, and usually they correct that mistake right away, sometimes even before the whole name is out. But some of the kids call me Mr. Woods, Mr. Wooden, Mr. Woodley, or my personal favorite, Mr. Woodsman.

Keep in mind I’m not even talking about the kids that just call me “Mister” or “Teacher.” My usual reply to that is, “Yes, generic student?”

This afternoon, when Plakton said, “Mr. Swanson, my pencil broke,” I decided to do something about it. I looked right at him, smiled, and replied, “What was that, Barry?”

Dead silence for about three seconds, then Pinar and Guadelupe started giggling. Plakton (with a look of incredulous shock on his face) and a few of the others simultaneously queried, “BARRY???” That’s when I made my proclamation: “Yes, from now on, anytime somebody calls me something that isn’t my name, I’m just going to call that person ‘Barry.’”

Of course I said this with a grin on my face, and while many of the children still sat with mouths agape, I could see some smiles forming. Except for Plakton, who stubbornly insisted, “But that’s not my name!”

Zaphonalia was the first to speak up after that (class loudmouth that she is). “Um, excuse me, Mr. Worrrrrrrrrrddssssy?” (Just imagine a large frog belching out that name.) I obliged with another, “Yes, Barry?”

You can guess what the class devolved into for the next fifteen minutes or so. Jorge probably went home and informed his parents, “Mr. Woodsman told me Barry!”

A little later, as we walked into the building for P.E., we passed a fifth grader who was headed out to Ms. Hamm’s portable. He called, “Hey, Mr. Woodley!” I waved and replied, “Hey, Barry!” Poor kid, stood there stunned while my class practically tripped over themselves with laughter.

I’ll be sure to let you know how the Barry Experiment goes for the rest of the year. Oh, and by the way, Barry says hi.
Later,
Mr. What’s-his-face

Date: Friday, January 23, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Something doesn’t fit here
Hey bud,
Please inform our erstwhile colleague (yours anyway) that I am calling the kids who can’t get my name right “Barry,” NOT “Larry.” And tell him nice try.

Last week marked the beginning of this year’s TAG program. TAG stands for Talented and Gifted, not Thermally Applied Gradient, as you probably first thought. A couple of times each week, kids in the program will be pulled out of their regular classes to participate in activities that I guess are supposed to stimulate their minds more. I’m not really sure how the selections were made, though. Pinar, Rafael, and Xander are in TAG, and deservedly so. But Tereelia, Guadelupe, and Kari are not, and they most definitely should be. And the selection committee must have been using a Fudge Factor of about 1,000 because somehow Marvin is in TAG!!

When I first learned that Marvin was in the program, my eyes just about fell out of my head. Marvin in TAG is like mayonnaise-flavored Skittles. BAD IDEA! Troubled and Goofy, maybe, but not Talented and Gifted. Here is a kid that has NO business missing any class time, and what’s more, he’s taking advantage of the situation. Teachers are not allowed to pull kids out of TAG as punishment (like we can have kids miss recess or P.E.), and Marvin really gets a kick out of that. Third grade TAG time is right after lunch on Tuesday and Thursday. I went to pick the kids up in the cafeteria yesterday, and one of the teacher’s aides told me Marvin was misbehaving. Marvin just smirked and said, “Whoops, time to go to TAG!” and I couldn’t stop him.

I’ve spoken with the TAG teacher, and she says that Marvin is a nuisance in her class as well. When I called Marvin’s mother, her first question was, “Um, how did Marvin get into the gifted program?” Good question! She says that she’s going to write a note to request that Marvin be removed from the program. He’s already in our after-school tutoring group, and he needs every minute of class time that he can get.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Swanson and I are going to fill out the necessary forms to try to get some of these other, more deserving kids into the program. I don’t really like the way that TAG breaks up our day, but most of these kids can afford to miss some of the extra practice that we do because they are on the ball. The only thing Marvin is on is thin ice.

And on the topic of things that seem out of place, have I told you about the new backpacks some of the kids have been using since Christmas break? The term backpack really doesn’t even apply, because they’re far too big for the kids’ backs. Instead, they have an extendable handle and wheels, so the students lug them around like baggage carts at an airport. I view them the same way I view Hummers on the road. Overly large, ridiculous looking, and totally unnecessary outside of a desert.
Later,
Remedial Ed

Date: Wednesday, January 28, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: I love the smell of Lysol in the morning
Hey F-Bomm,
Oh man, do I feel like crap today. All of the Lysol and hand lotion has not protected me from something that has been going around — “the crud” as my dad would say — and I’ve got it now. Zaphonalia, Miguel, and a few of the other kids have had a wet hacking cough since last week, and they usually don’t even cover their mouths. It’s a wonder I made it this long without catching something here in this giant petri dish.

I woke up feeling bad, and it didn’t get any better as the day progressed. In fact, the only reason I didn’t call in sick was because I don’t have anything set up for a substitute! We’re supposed to have a “sub tub” in the room, filled with a class roster, schedule, and work packets for the kids, and guess who hasn’t put one together yet? I have got to do that soon.

You’re lucky. When you call in sick, you can just crawl back into bed, get up around noon, and watch General Hospital while you eat Better Cheddars. (Don’t pretend you don’t.) You don’t first have to prepare detailed instructions for a stranger, then worry about coming back to find your cubicle in shambles. Well, except for times around the full moon when Larry is feeling frisky.

Remember the MegaLat 2000 — the little megaphone that Latya got as a gag gift one year to help us hear him better? I certainly could have used that today. Because of this crud, my voice was raspy and broken, and it hurt to talk loudly. First thing this morning, I was told, “Your voice sounds funny!” — by Tereelia, of all people. This from a little girl who always sounds like she’s been inhaling helium. I’m sure I looked like death warmed over as well. I haven’t shaved for a couple of days, so my face feels like Astroturf.

It got to the point where I thought I was hallucinating at recess. Rafael came up to talk to me, and I noticed that his eyes were a brilliant shade of blue. This was disturbing because Rafael has always had brown eyes. Later, I discovered that he was wearing blue contacts. Don’t ask me why, I couldn’t tell you.

I’ll tell you one thing, I was VERY thankful today for the fact that I have a bathroom right there in my portable. I drank a whole lot of water, in an effort to flush out the cold, and as a result, I needed a bathroom break about every twenty minutes. Sure, I could count on Marvin to be standing up, doing the truffle shuffle on his chair every time I came out of the bathroom, but I guess I’ve gotten used to that.

I haven’t gone to the doctor because I’m sure that this is something my body just needs to fight through. Besides, I don’t want to have to take any kind of medication whose possible side effects include uncontrollable spontaneous flatulence. I’m sticking with my Nyquil and cherry-flavored chewable Morphine, and they’re finally starting to kick in, so I am going to crash.
Later,
Sir Ian Phlegming

Date: Friday, January 30, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Correspondence school
Hey dude,
I am feeling a lot better today, thanks for asking. It’s amazing what a cocktail of Mountain Dew, vodka, soy sauce, ketchup, and a raw egg will do. Oh yeah, and a little crack cocaine.

Experienced teachers (unlike yours truly) always say that one of the greatest perks of the job is having a former student approach them years later and ask, “Do you remember me?” To which the teacher responds, “Yes, I remember you! You always wiped boogers under your desk!” Well, as of today, I can join the ranks of teachers who have heard from a former student by way of letter!

No, it was not a letter from Mark Peter. If it were, it probably would have been a plea for bail money. Instead, it was from Ariel, writing to tell me about her new house and saying she misses the class.

Her mom stopped by to hand-deliver the note around 1:30 today. The class was deep in test-mode, and I was sitting at the overhead grading papers. I guess she must have knocked on the door, but I didn’t hear it. The first thing I heard was a very loud, “Hellllloooooo!” as she walked into the main room. As I got up to meet her, she belted out, “SPECIAL DELIVERY!” Then she noticed that the kids were taking a test (or had been — now they were staring at her open-mouthed), and she got a little embarrassed.

We stepped outside and talked for a bit. It sounds like they love the new environment. I was certainly very disappointed to lose Ariel from my class, but the move was a necessary and good thing for her parents. They have a nice house on a sizable tract of land, instead of living in a packed apartment complex.

Ariel told me in her note that she has her own room with a queen-size bed, and that they can often hear coyotes howl at night. She informed me that at her new school, they are way ahead in cursive (I have no doubt), and she demonstrated that skill throughout the letter. In a P.S. she told me that she had “lost a thooth.” I certainly hope she is not “in need of immediate dental attention!”

It was really nice of Ariel to write me a note. But I soon had to refocus on the kids who are still with me. They do seem to be making some strides in their test-taking practices. I’ve been trying to convince the kids all year long that it’s very important for them to check over their work when they get done with a test. Usually, they race through it and make a bunch of silly errors, but I’ve done my best to encourage them to start over once they’re finished and carefully re-read every question to make sure they’ve performed the right steps. At first, when a student would say they were done, I would say, “Check over your work,” and not five minutes later, they would tell me, “I checked it 8 times!” OK, Quicksilver, whatever. Checking your work is not just flipping the pages like you’re fanning a deck of cards.

See, without checking things over, they are bound to get questions wrong. The people who make the TAKS tests know exactly what errors and assumptions kids are going to make, and they make the corresponding incorrect answer choices available for the kids to select. Clearly, these are the people who enjoyed pulling the wings off of flies when they themselves were children.

I’ve tried to establish an “us-vs.-them” mentality with the kids. I explain to them, “The TAKS people live in a dark, dripping cave, and they like to eat brussels sprouts and lima beans, and they LOVE to trick little kids with their math questions. Don’t be one of the kids that falls into their trap!”

And it’s finally starting to have an effect. During our test today, Carlos called me over to his desk to tell me, “Mr. Woodson, I checked my test and I saw three wrong answers! I fixed them, but I’m going to look some more!” Later, Esteban raised his hand and told me, “Look, Mr. Woodson, they tried to trick me with this question!” And he had changed his answer from an incorrect choice to the correct one. Way to go, guys!

And then there’s Lindsay. Last week, she exclaimed, “I sure am glad I checked my work, because I would have gotten this one wrong! Whoooo! That was a close one!” I looked over her shoulder, and sure enough, she had erased the correct answer and filled in another bubble.

Hey, at least it’s a step in the right direction — she IS checking her answers. Now we just need to get that step onto level ground and not onto her own shoelace.

I’ve got to get up early tomorrow morning for Saturday School, so I’ll end it here.
Later,
Checkster Cheetah

Date: Monday, February 2, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Make a joyful noise
Hey bud,
I don’t think that a letter from a former student and an email from a former employee can be viewed in quite the same way. For one thing, Bert and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms, seeing as how he laid me off and all. Secondly, I would have to call him Barry since he could never keep Tom Winter and me straight and always called us by the wrong names. So to answer your question — no, Ariel’s letter does NOT inspire me to contact Bert.

Oh, and I guess I didn’t explain Saturday School to you. It’s not a time for the kids to learn about the Bible. That would be Sunday School. It’s not a time for the kids to learn about beer. That would be middle school. Saturday School is basically an extra tutoring session for the struggling kids, and it runs from 9 to noon. The student-teacher ratio is really good. I only had six kids in my group, so we got a lot accomplished!

Today, I got a new little girl in class, and her name brought light and harmony to the room. Her name is Rejoice. She and her family are brand new to the United States, having just come from Ethiopia (that’s in Africa, for you geographically-challenged types — I think it’s right next to China).

Her father and uncle brought her to my class during lock down this morning. We were at a point where the kids were reading silently to themselves, so I had Rejoice (emphasis on the “Re”) sit at my desk and read a little bit out loud to me, to see what level she was at. I was pleasantly surprised. For someone brand new to the country, she reads better than some of our other kids. I should probably have her start tutoring Sandra and Ralph immediately.

After lock down, Rejoice stayed in the room as the other kids from my homeroom came in and started working. When everyone was there, we played a shortened version of the name game — basically, we went around the room, with me pointing at the kids one at a time, and them saying their names when they were pointed at. I had already introduced Rejoice to the kids before anyone else said their name. About halfway through the class, I noticed that Tereelia had her head down and was crying. When I asked her later why she was crying, she said it was because some of the kids were laughing at Re-joice’s name. I just can’t figure that girl out. She’s super-smart, but she’s also super-sensitive sometimes.

Back to Rejoice, she’s a really sweet, quiet, polite little girl. After Minute Math, I was asking random multiplication questions, as I usually do. When I called on Rejoice, she would daintily stand up, correctly answer, and then sit back down. Everything short of a curtsy. It’s so odd to see manners here at my school.

Since she is new to the country, she’ll be exempt from the TAKS tests. We could have put her in Ms. Dennison’s ESL class, but Mrs. Swanson and I agreed that we would keep her in my class. We could use more pleasant children like her in our groups, that’s for sure.

Kelly’s pregnancy is starting to show now. And she is a short girl, so it’s even more pronounced. That might have gotten the kids thinking more about babies because during our discussion of amphibians today, Pinar asked where the baby frogs come from. Unfortunately, my answer of, “They hatch out of the eggs,” was not enough to satisfy her. She persisted, “No, I mean do the eggs come out of the frog’s mouth?”

Victor immediately shouted out, “The frog poops them out!” Nice. I was tempted to just blurt, “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no birth and no tadpoles!” but I wound up just copping out and telling Pinar, “Don’t worry, you’ll learn all about that in 4th grade,” and then quickly changing the subject. Call me a wimp, but I’m not about to get into a discussion about the birds and the bees with these kids! Especially considering that some of them might know more than me... Scary!
Later,
Dr. Ruth

Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Closing arguments
Hey dude,
You’re absolutely right, Rejoice IS, for all intents and purposes, the Anti-Lucifer! Which leads me to ask, are you keeping a graph of my GOOD data points to go with the bad plot? Rejoice, Pinar, Xander, Anita, and all the other bright lights? It seems only fair.

Your son is about the same age as my students, right? Does he argue with just about everything you say? Some of my kids will contest even the simplest statement! I don’t know if they’re just trying to waste time or if they really believe what they’re saying, but either way, it is incredibly annoying!

Last week, when we were doing a lesson on inequalities (greater than and less than), I told the kids to think of the sign as an alligator’s mouth. The mouth always faces the bigger number because an alligator always wants to eat the biggest thing it can. Zaphonalia immediately started up with, “Nuh-uh!! What if he’s on a diet?” (Not that Zaphonalia would know anything about diets — she’s gotta be pushing two bills.) I told her that as far as I know, the only diet an alligator would ever be on is the South Beach Diet — whatever it can catch on the South Beach, it eats.

Yesterday, we were doing word problems that involved elapsed time. Many of the kids don’t have a firm grasp on the concepts of before and after, much less linear chronology. Here’s an example of our problems:

Charlie left the school at 3:30. It takes him 20 minutes to walk home. What time will he get home?

A lot of kids picked 3:10 as their answer. I tried to explain how someone could not leave school and then go backwards in time to get home BEFORE they even left the school. But Rose and Ja’wane stubbornly insisted that it could be done. “The Flash could do it!” Ja’wane stated matter-offactly. While tempted to give the boy extra credit for his insight, I felt obligated to point out that the problem was about some kid named Charlie, who most likely does NOT have the Flash’s ability to run fast enough to reverse time. Ja’wane immediately responded, “Do you watch the Justice League cartoon?” And then I had to steer everyone’s focus back to math.

Today, we talked a little bit about eclipses as part of our solar system discussion, and I was faced with the latest example of pointless arguing. I warned the kids that they should never, ever look directly at the Sun, even during an eclipse. Thomson, who was in a foul mood, and just looking to spite someone, mumbled, “I stare at the Sun every day!” Not impressed, and in a foul mood myself, I answered, “Oh, well then I guess you’ll be blind soon, and you’ll never be able to see again. Hope that works out for ya!” I doubt that improved his mood, but I felt a little better.

Speaking of the solar system, I’ve got a good one for you. During our discussion of the individual planets and their properties last week, Alex asked me a very interesting question. He had noticed that Saturn is not the only planet to have a collection of rocks and dust circling it. So he raised his hand and asked, “Mr. Woodson, does Uranus have a ring around it?”

I could tell from the serious looks on all of the kids’ faces that this truly was a question of planetary information and not one of personal hygiene, and I felt a little ashamed of the giggles welling up inside of me. I managed to croak, “Yes, I think it does have a small ring, Alex. Thanks for asking.”

I’ll let them get to high school before introducing the joke about what toilet paper and the Starship Enterprise have in common...
Later,
Perry Mason

Date: Friday, February 6, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!
Hey dude,
You don’t know that old joke? They both circle Uranus in search of Klingons. Yes, beam me up, Scotty, there’s no sign of intelligent life down here.

Remember me telling you about Harry, the artist formerly known as “Baby Boy?” He hasn’t been in class for about two weeks now, but he hadn’t officially withdrawn from the school, either. Until today, that is.

Mrs. Swanson and I were on our way to the office after dropping our kids off at music and art when we encountered Harry and his family. His mother was with him, as were a couple of sisters, and an uncle. The uncle seemed a little unsteady on his feet, and my first impression was that he must smoke twenty packs of cigarettes a day to reek so strongly, even from a distance. You know how there’s that telltale smell that usually accompanies a chain-smoker — smoke and spearmint, each trying to overpower the other? This guy had an odor that was stronger than anything I had ever smelled before.

Harry’s mother had withdrawal papers, and after we had signed them, the whole family set off to hunt down the sisters’ teachers. I know what you’re going to ask. Was either of the sisters ever known as “Baby Girl?” Maybe “Fe’Male?” I have no idea, and I didn’t ask.

When Kelly and I were on our way to the office again, and out of earshot, she remarked, “Wow, that guy really smelled like pot!” My mouth smoothly replied, “No kidding,” while my brain thought, “So THAT’S what pot smells like!” (I plead the sheltered life defense one more time.)

Somehow I wound up in Uncle Stinky’s presence once again about ten minutes later. He asked me what else they needed to do besides getting our signatures on the withdrawal papers. I, meanwhile, was doing all I could not to fashion my tie into a makeshift breathing mask, because this guy was REALLY ripe. And this time, he was standing even closer to me, which didn’t help matters at all. I did manage to answer his questions and keep a friendly expression, however, and I don’t think he noticed my eyes watering or my nostrils turning inward on themselves.

I’m sure that you probably know what pot smells like, but I can now at least confirm for myself that that smell hovering around Viggo was not dope. Every time I would go into his cubicle over in the production area, I encountered some funky odor that I could never identify. I always wondered if he might be firing up something other than ceramics. It must just have been regular, good ol’ unsweetened B.O.! What a relief!
Talk to you later,
Half-Baked

Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Have duster, will travel
Hey bub,
So what if I’m the only guy you know who’s never smelled pot before? I’m probably also the only guy you know who cleans his bathtub with a putty knife.

While we were switching classes this morning, and my second class was beginning to enter my room, I noticed Esteban get out of line and hand something to Mrs. Swanson. A few minutes later, after he put up his backpack and sat down at his desk, he got back up and approached me. He was determined to give me the same thing he had given Mrs. Swanson, which turned out to be a business card.

“Working on the side now, are you?” I asked him. He answered in a serious tone, “No, it’s for my mom.”

I looked at the card, and sure enough, it was for his mother, who apparently runs a maid service. Esteban is a good son, no? I mean hey, the kid can’t ever seem to bring his homework or focus in class, but at least he can shill goods and services for his mother.

So if you ever need someone to clean up that pigsty you call an apartment, I can put you in touch with the right people. Just give me some advance warning, because it might take a while to learn the price.

“Esteban, how much does your mother charge to clean an apartment?”

“FOUR DOLLARS!!”

“Really? That’s all?

“FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS!!!!”

“Well, which is it?”

“NINETEEN NINETY-NINE!!!!!”

While Esteban’s screaming was all in my head (at least today), Ralph’s was not. You want to hear a completely surreal experience, this was it. Rafael’s mother showed up in my doorway this afternoon, when I was on the other side of the room. Ralph, who sits near the door, was the first to notice her. But instead of calling out, “Mr. Woodson, there’s somebody at the door!” or “We have a visitor!” or (Heaven forbid) actually continuing to do his work like he’s SUPPOSED to when we have a visitor, he yelled out “CUSTOMER!!” at the top of his lungs. I have no idea where THAT came from. Maybe his mom runs a business, too. Or maybe he’s just practicing for a summer job as a short-order cook in a noisy diner. As long as he doesn’t need to have skills in math or reading, I’m sure he’ll do just fine.
Later,
John Trepeneur

Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Cupid is as Cupid does
Hey Fred,
I have no idea if Esteban’s mother cleans cubicles or not. You can call the number on her card and find out. I’m sure Larry would love to have someone clean up after him, but I think Paul might take offense that you think his workspace is so messy.

Today was a party day at the school; we celebrated Valentine’s Day. Since V-Day is actually on Saturday, AND since tomorrow is a student holiday, we had to celebrate a bit early.

It was fun, and I now have enough candy to last until Christmas. Mrs. Swanson and I celebrated in our own rooms, but there was a pretty constant flow of kids going back and forth between our portables. The kids had all brought cards and/or candy, and shortly after lunch we let them start passing out the goodies. Mrs. Swanson brought cards and I had gotten a few bags of Hershey’s Kisses (the kind with the almond in the center — the best!), so no one’s bag was left empty.

I received several Harry Potter valentines, a few Spiderman cards, and even a Scooby-Doo or two. Ralph gave me a lovely (if not exactly timely) card that said, “Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year!” Anita gave Mrs. Swanson and me teddy bears, and Susan gave us each a mug with hearts on it. I also got boxes of chocolates from Maria and Kari. The highlight, though, was a hand-made card from Pinar, and I have to share what she wrote. It said:

Dear Mr. Woodson,

I hope you have a nice Valentine’s Day!!

Even though you are a man, Valentine’s Day is for everyone to have love.

Then on the back was the cryptic (yet heart-felt) comment,

Love always flies up to you, and pretty soon so will you!!
So despite my masculinity, I can STILL enjoy the holiday and maybe even sprout wings? Score!!

So have you got any plans for Valentine’s Day? My plans include eating a box of Hamburger Helper and watching some pro wrestling. And how is this different from any other Saturday night, you may ask? Well, that’s a darn good question. I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as I come up with an answer.
Have a good one,
King of Hearts

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: What rhymes with nice, but isn’t?
Hey dude,
I’m starting to get a little worried about the ol’ franchise over there. Yes, I realize that the heart is associated with Valentine’s Day, and yes, I understand the heart’s function in the human body, but you’re telling me Carol and Nancy actually answered their phones, “Blood Pumps Unlimited” all day on Friday? You’re kidding, right??

Well, speaking of weird things associated with the body, something was really bugging me today, in the literal sense. It seems the school is going through an epidemic. There’s been an outbreak of lice.

Sally got called to the office yesterday after lunch. She was in Mrs. Swanson’s class at the time, but the note from the nurse’s office came to me. It said that Sally had gone home with a case of lice (NOT the same as going home with a case of Heineken) and that I would need to bring my homeroom class by the clinic the next day (today).

Naturally, when I first read the word “lice,” my hair started itching, big-time. I remember last year when there was a lice scare in the library, and the librarian started soaking herself in Lysol every ten minutes. Hmmm...Lysol = Lice-all? Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, this morning, first thing after lock down, I took my class to the clinic. Sally was back with us — I guess there’s no 28-day rehabilitation program for lice. One by one, the nurse checked out all of the kids. She had them stand in front of her, while she expertly ran her fingers through their hair. Some of the kids with almost no hair, like Xander and Thomson, she barely glanced at, but it was clear that the girls with long hair were most at risk.

After all of the kids had been examined, I had the nurse check my hair, too. It had been a while since anyone had picked the nits out. Definitely a fun experience, down on one knee, being searched for head-lice while all of my kids looked on expectantly. Thankfully, I was given the all-clear sign, and that was quite a relief.

We had one casualty, though, and that was Jessica. She had to be sent home with the same treatment Sally got yesterday. Later, Miss Lake told me that she had taken her lock down class to the clinic this morning also (Sally is in her lock down class). Two girls from that group also had lice and had to be sent home.

Come to find out, this all apparently started in one of the kindergarten classes. Nearly half of the class was sent home yesterday. Sally’s little sister is in that class, and you can just follow the trail.

I did learn a new word today. If you’re ever on Jeopardy! and the clue comes up, “This is the clinical term for lice,” you can respond, “What is Pediculosis, Alex? Now give me Married Popes for $1000.”

Another tidbit that the nurse told me was that lice are repelled by hair spray and gel. People that do up their hair stiffly are generally safe from the little critters. So tomorrow, I’m thinking about coming in sporting the Pat Riley look. At least you can tell Dick Lorenzo that he’s safe from head bugs. That guy must use a bottle and a half of L.A. Looks a day.
Later,
Vidal Sassoon

Date: Friday, February 20, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Rules of Engagement
Hey buddy,
As a kid, I learned the same thing you did — lice could only be spread by hat swapping. But our nurse told me that the little critters can actually jump from one person to another. Still, you’re probably wise not to share ANY articles of clothing with Larry. Ever.

Today was Alex’s last day. I’ll really miss him, because he’s a great kid. I’ll admit, when kids like Mark Peter and Lucifer leave, I don’t mind so much, but I hate to lose someone like Alex. On the other hand, I have to remember that it’s really a step up for him and his family. This IS a lowincome school with most of the students coming from local (crappy) apartments. Alex’s dad had been taking classes at a community college, and I guess they paid off because he got a new job, and they’re going to move into a new house up in Plano. So while I’m sorry to see Alex go, I’m happy for him as well, and it was the same way with Ariel.

Back to the current inmates. Plakton and Ja’wane got into a fight today. With each other, of course. We were coming back from recess, and I had already entered the classroom, ahead of the kids. I turned around in time to see Ja’wane shove Plakton, and before I could get back out there, Plakton had retaliated with a punch to Ja’wane’s arm.

After breaking up the fight, I got the other kids settled and working on something, and then I had a talk with my two wannabe pugilists. I told them, “Listen up. First rule of Fight Club, there IS no Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club... Go stand in the corner.”

Up until today, I had been relatively lucky in that I hadn’t had to deal with many physical fights. At least not between two boys. When Mark Peter tackled Jessica (We was playin’ football!), that was an easy fix because he was so totally at fault. With Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, er, I mean Plakton and Ja’wane, they were both at fault, so we’ll probably wind up suspending them both for a day or two.

I’m reminded of what a great disciplinarian my dad was with my brother and me. One incident in particular has always stayed with me. I think I was probably about 10 or 11, which would make Zack 6 or 7. The two of us were fighting over this cheap red plastic comb that one of us had gotten in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. I think the handle had an image of Hamburgler on it, and for some reason it was very valuable to each of us.

I’ll never forget my dad, channeling the wisdom of King Solomon himself, speaking the words, “Gimme that thing. I want to comb the hairs in my butt.”

I have in my mind’s eye a slow-motion image of the comb dropping to the floor, spinning end over end, as Zack and I simultaneously let go of it. And to my knowledge, neither of us ever touched that comb again.

Now, if I could only make that kind of impression on my own kids, I would be set.
Talk to you later,
M.C. Hammurabi

Date: Monday, February 23, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: How many fingers am I holding up?
Hey bud,
Yes, my dad is quite the character. You’ll have to meet him someday. As he always says, he’ll be the most popular loon in the old-folks home someday.

And I’m really not sure which is harder to believe — that you actually told that Hamburgler comb story while Reggie was around, or that he laughed and joked right back! You must be doing something right, buddy! Pretty soon you will be on the “Top Performers” list — going to lunch with Bert and Reggie, hearing all the company secrets, getting to use the “3” setting on the boardroom oscillating fan.

So Reggie suggested a penalty box in my classroom, huh? That’s actually not a bad idea, though Plakton and Ja’wane weren’t exactly guilty of high-sticking.

Today’s lesson was rounding and estimation. This was always my least favorite part of math class when I was in school. However, a high-school buddy of mine who is also a third grade teacher taught me a neat way to explain the concept.

Much like driving in England, the hard part about rounding is trying to remember which way to go. Do you round UP or round DOWN? This way makes it easy to remember. It’s truly a “hands-on” method, as it involves using your fingers. If you have enough fingers to make a fist, you “punch the number up.” If not, it goes down.

The kids actually picked up on this quite quickly. And it was funny to see how excited some of them were when we practiced. Carlos was practically shouting, “Yeah, you gotta PUNCH it up!”

Then, when we encountered a number that should be rounded down, the kids would say, “No, you can’t punch it up, so you have to punch it down!” Of course, you can’t punch it in any direction if you can’t make a fist — that’s kind of the point. I’ll have to think of a better way to get that across. Maybe if you can’t make a fist you have to just let go of it and let it drop down.

It’s too bad I didn’t know about this technique for rounding while I was with Heat Pumps Unlimited, or I could have taught it to Bill Albany. He was an elderly engineer, before your time, who had a habit of overstaying his welcome in other people’s cubicles and talking their ear off. I tried to be polite, but despite subtle hints about needing to get back to work, overt glances at the clock, and even turning away from him, he never seemed to get the message. I tried making phone calls, putting on headphones, and even shooting up an emergency flare once, but when I turned around, he was always still there — “...think it might rain today... You know, it rained last Tuesday...”

Anyway, on the few occasions that Bill joined our group for lunch, he would insist on putting the entire bill on his Discover Card (for the cash back rewards) and then demand that we each pay him back. Absolutely no rounding involved. He wanted payment down to the penny. This is where the “punch it up” method would have come in handy (no pun intended). Bill retired several years ago, but even on his last day, he came by and whined, “You still owe me a quarter!”

Back to my class, the only problem I see now is that I’ve given the kids permission to make punching gestures in class. So far, no one has abused that, but I can just see Marvin or Ralph punching at each other during a test. That would of course make me round both of them DOWN.
Later,
Rawhide

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Science Unfair
Hey Fred,
Thanks a lot. You’ve painfully reminded me that rounding is not always applied in the real world. How could I forget my own experience with Heat Pumps Unlimited? I worked there for 3 years and 10 months, but when they laid me off, they rounded that down to 3 years for the severance pay. Oh believe me, I may not have been estimating, but I was making some fists that day.

But hey, let’s get out of the past and into the future. No? OK, then let’s get into the much more recent past. Today was the school science fair, and there were a few entries from my class. Kari and Susan teamed up and did a project based on the phases of the moon. They had a shoebox with a flashlight taped to one end and a ping-pong ball hanging in the center. Holes were cut out of the side of the box that allowed a viewer to see the ping-pong ball waxing and waning.

Anita also submitted a project. Hers had to do with being able to hear sounds of the ocean from a seashell. She had an assortment of shells, and one really big conch. Made me think of Lord of the Flies. Without Piggy.

Last week, we started a simple experiment in the classroom; something that I hoped would demonstrate how to do a science fair project. I had the kids copy what I wrote from the overhead as we talked about Hypothesis, Procedure, Conclusion, and the other sections of a project. I brought in three slices of white bread and arranged them on the back shelf under the football field bulletin board. I left one completely dry. I put a little bit of water on another, and I saturated the last with water. I told the kids to choose one of those three pieces and fill in this hypothesis statement — “I predict the _________ piece will grow mold the fastest.” For the sake of the custodians, I slapped a sign nearby that says, “Do not disturb — science in progress.” You should make a similar sign and put it on the men’s restroom door in your office and see what happens.

We have periodically observed our test subjects, and so far, it has been a pretty bogus project. It’s been over a week now, and no mold whatsoever has grown on any of the three pieces of bread. In fact, the only real difference among the pieces is that one has split in half. Mold grows on bread in my pantry no problem, but when I TRY to grow it, nothing happens...

At the end of the day, I took a walk through the gym to look at a few of the projects. There were a few bright spots, but a whole lot of black holes that would have Stephen Hawking spinning in his chair. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of a grade school science fair, but some of these kids did not get the concept at all.

One project, that purported to be about electricity, had this under Procedure: “Kyle got the markers and tape and I got the board. We taped the pictures and papers to the board and then added some colors.” Procedure of how they set up the display, not how they did the project! And these were sixth graders!

As you know, the Conclusion section is where you decide whether your hypothesis was true or false. One project at our school science fair had this written statement prominently displayed: “CONCLUSION: I think this project was great!” A conclusion of sorts, I’ll grant you, but not along the lines of the scientific method.

Oh, and Ralph told me that he thought Hypothesis was a place for people to keep their stuff way up in the air. Draw your own conclusions.

On a sad note, I’m losing a little sweetheart tomorrow. Maria informed me that Friday would be her last day. Ariel, Ricky, Alex, and now Maria — Why can’t the good ones stay?? I know, I’m being selfish, I’ll admit it. I’m just afraid when a good kid leaves, because it just opens a hole for another Mark Peter to come in.
Later,
Khan Klusion

Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Reading is Fundamental
Hey dude,
Sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you, but the last week has been pretty hectic, getting ready for today’s TAKS reading test. Now we’ll see if all the practice, all the tutoring, and the three Saturday schools paid off!

Last night, a thought occurred to me. Everyone is always lamenting school financing and inadequate funds for classrooms, when it seems the ideal solution is staring them right in the face. Two words: Corporate Sponsorship, baybee! I can see it now — “The Visa TAKS Test, brought to you by McDonalds. McDonalds — you deserve a test today.” These kids would GLADLY wear company logos on their sleeves, shoes, foreheads, whatever. I’m just saying, it’s a goldmine that has yet to be tapped.

Today was an especially long day as I was on my feet walking around, keeping a strict eye on everyone. There’s no filing of papers, grading, or Game-Boys allowed during a TAKS day. As my old boss Steve Potts always said, “We aren’t just sitting around, drinking coffee and reading magazines.” You have to stay alert and make sure no one is talking to or gesturing at each other. The consequences for cheating on the TAKS test go way beyond the old “you’ll have to clean my bathroom.” Though I do have to say, that threat has proven mighty effective all year long.

In addition to monitor duty, I also had to act as sort of a snack vendor. The kids each got a bottle of water at the beginning of the day, and throughout the test, I would come around and put a handful of animal crackers and/or M&Ms on their desks. This was supposed to keep up their mental energy, but apparently animal crackers don’t always sit real well in the morning. Not long after eating his, Carlos motioned me over and told me he was going to throw up. Once more, it was fortuitous to have a bathroom right there in the classroom. After he came back out, I had one of the local monitors come and walk around with him outside for a few minutes to clear his head. Too bad I couldn’t have taken that stroll in his place — the monitor was one of our cutie student teachers!

Any time we would stop for a restroom break and when we went to lunch, I had to collect up all the tests and lock them away in my storage closet. This is a really big deal, because I guess they don’t want the Hamburgler walking in and looking at Jorge’s answers. (Or Grimace — we all know HE never passed a reading test.)

As I walked around the room, I would glance over people’s shoulders and look at the answers they were choosing or read a bit of a story. Most of the reading passages were the same for everyone, so I could move from child to child and still complete the whole story. Nearly all of the TAKS reading questions have answers that can be found in the passage, usually word for word. But some of these kids just don’t want to read, and they take guesses, often picking the most ridiculous answers. For instance, one of the stories told of a merchant selling his prize rug in order to have money to marry off his daughter. On one of the questions that asked why the merchant sold his prize rug, I saw a few kids choose the answer that read, “Because a magic platypus told him he would be rich if he sold the rug.” The word “platypus” was nowhere to be found in the entire story, but of course only someone who had actually READ the story would know that.

Stupid answers notwithstanding, I think that the kids in my room did well overall. Mrs. Swanson said the same thing about the kids in her room. We did have a few kids in other rooms, either because we didn’t want them disrupting the others — i.e., Marvin and Ralph — or because we wanted someone to be able to keep an extra close eye on them and make sure they weren’t just going through, filling in bubbles at random. Sally and Esteban have been known to do this without actually reading the stories. In fact, I think Esteban DID do that today, so he probably won’t pass. I suppose we’ll find out in a few weeks.

Oh, and today of all days, we got a new student. A little girl named Marlene. She seems nice enough, but she did have to take the test with us, and as far as I know, her results will count for or against us. Kelly was not too pleased about that. Here’s hoping she passed.

Lest I forget, to answer your question about our classroom science project — the (un) moldy bread is all gone. We decided to alter our hypothesis statement from “I predict the ________ piece will grow mold the fastest” to “I predict the ________ piece will taste the best.” No, I’m only kidding. As soon as the Science Fair was over, I threw everything in the garbage. I have no doubt that now that it’s out of sight, that bread is just coated with mold. Enjoy your dinner!
Talk to you later,
Huk’d on Fon-ix

Date: Friday, March 5, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Encyclopedia Brown strikes again
Hey dude,
You may not have proxied any day-long exams, but it sounds like you had a few hellish days there yourself! Let me see if I have this straight. Your supplier didn’t meet spec on the plate stock you got, and now he’s giving you the runaround on replacing it quickly. I think I can probably guess who you’re dealing with here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make it any easier to have to inform YOUR customer that his shipment is going to be late as a result. Sorry, man, that stinks. Sometimes dealing with those guys is like eating two-weekold moldy bread from a failed science experiment — it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Hopefully I can cheer you up. Today was a fun day for us, and a good way to wrap up a long week. Since the kids took the TAKS reading test on Wednesday, and then we hit them with a math practice test yesterday, today was a reward day.

Mrs. Swanson and I switched classes earlier than usual and had shortened classes, so that we had time between lunch and P.E. to have pizza and watch a movie. Everybody came into my room and sat on the floor, and we watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Kelly has been reading that book with the kids, so she wanted to see how the cartoon compared. Midway through the movie, a little red fawn named Mr. Tumnus shows up and befriends one of the children. At this point, Jorge leaned over to Sofia, and I heard him say, “That’s the wardrobe!” Yes, Jorge, and that innocuous looking lamppost is actually the lion!

We had told the kids all week long that we would have this reward day for everybody who made their best effort on the reading test and the math practice test. We told them that anyone who fooled around, bubbled answers without reading the questions, or just generally did not try would not participate in our pizza party. So of course, we had three kids who got to sit in my entranceway and make corrections on their practice test during our reward time. I’ll let you guess who those three were.

There was almost a fourth non-participant. Earlier in the day, we were at the outside restrooms taking our morning break. Nearly all of the kids were done and back in line; I was waiting just outside the restrooms for a couple of stragglers. Christy left the line, walked over to where I was standing, and whispered, “Mr. Woodson, Thomson pointed the middle finger at me.”

Christy and I walked back towards the line, and as I walked up to the front, I said loudly, “Well, anyone who points their middle finger at someone just won’t be participating in our reward party today.”

Immediately, Thomson retorted, “I didn’t point my middle finger at her!” I responded quickly, “Hmmm... well I never said WHO had pointed their middle finger, but thanks for coming out and admitting it, Thomson.” The look on his face was priceless. There was a flash of surprise, and then he hung his head in defeat. His expression seemed to say, “Alas, I realize I have tipped my hand, sir. Well-played. Well-played.”

When we got back to the room, I told him that he could either miss out on the party or he could choose not to receive any blue tickets at all for the next week. Initially, he chose to miss the party. Later, after a tearful inner struggle, he changed his mind and opted for the no prize basket option.

Now the reading test is down, but the math test looms. The one that falls squarely on my shoulders. Thirty more school days to go — but who’s counting?

Oh, and were you serious about Paul’s questions? He asked if I was happy at the school, if I was under contract here, and if I wanted to come back to HPU? Um, gee, let me think. Yes, yes, and no. In that order. I may gripe about certain kids, but overall I find myself going home each day with a much greater sense of fulfillment than I ever did in cubicle land.

Plus, it’s just easier to deal with kids being idiots every so often than adults being idiots, like your supplier. Good luck with your materials nightmare. Keep me posted.
Hang in there,
Stan Put

Date: Monday, March 8, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: That’s gonna leave a mark
Hey Fred,
Wow! You got new plates today? Paul must really have lit a fire under those guys to get them to replace a bad order so fast! I think I know who your customer must be if they can apply this kind of pressure. No wonder your email this morning was so short. I imagine you’re still at the plant, working in overdrive to meet YOUR deadline now! I’ll give you something to read whenever you get to come up for air.

Today when we were getting ready to go to music, one of my kids had a slight mishap. Usually, I have them line up at the doorway, and then when everyone is ready, we walk down the stairs and onto the sidewalk to go to the building. But sometimes the kids at the front of the line get a little anxious and spill out of the room a bit. And that’s when accidents happen, my friend.

When I went to the front of the line, Marvin was in tears. We’re talking waterfalls here. The tears weren’t merely running down his cheeks, they were shooting out of his eyes like little liquid bullets. Which isn’t very unusual. This kid cries more than a Chicago Cubs fan during the pennant race.

I asked him what had happened, and he screeched out something that I eventually translated into, “I was standing on the stairs and Krissy pushed me and I went off the stairs and I landed on the rail right on my PRIVATES!”

While Marvin continued to fire tears out of his eyes in lament of his poor future children (or lack thereof), Krissy stoically explained that she didn’t push him on purpose. The kids in the back of the line had been jostling, and she had been bumped into Marvin.

With this revelation, Marvin’s tears abruptly stopped, and his whole demeanor changed. He now wore a puzzled look instead of a pained one. “You mean, it was an accident?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “Oh, OK.” And just like that, he was fine. It was like flipping a switch.

In other bizarre news, after I dropped the kids off, I went to use the boys’ bathroom by the office, which happens to be in the kindergarten hall. As I stood at one of the urinals, this little kid came in and stood at the urinal right next to mine. (He obviously hasn’t learned the rules of bathroom etiquette, such as ALWAYS leaving at least one buffer space.)

“Where were you born?” he asked mid-stream, with no introduction. As I answered “Virginia,” I moved to the sink to wash my hands. “I was born in Texas!” he proudly informed me.

Right at that moment, another little kindergartner walked in and loudly asked, “Who said SEX?”

My mind went blank for about half a second, and then I recovered as best as I could. “HE was born in Texas!” I told our newcomer. “Where were YOU born?”

My hunch that the kid would have a short attention span paid off, and the new boy launched into a spirited discussion of birthplaces and local points of interest with the other kid. But my question is, does “Texas” really sound that much like “sex?” And why is a boy whose head barely comes up to the sink even aware of the word??

Just taking a trip to the restroom is fraught with peril nowadays! From now on, I will have to limit myself to using the one in my portable. And maybe the one in the teachers’ lounge, too. It’s always good to have a redundancy bathroom.

I know you’re still in the danger zone there when it comes to bathroom usage. There’s nothing more frightening than seeing Larry’s shoes in the next stall. You could always expect to hear a sound like a cantaloupe being dropped from a height of six feet into the bowl. And watch out for the splashing.
Talk to you later,
Holden MacRoin

Date: Thursday, March 11, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Space, the Forgotten Frontier
Hey buddy,
I know, I know, we agreed not to discuss Larry and his bathroom tendencies. My bad. Hey, congrats on getting the fire put out! Now you can get back to goofing around with Winter and Tiffany. And thanks for the great suggestion. A sign WOULD be cool to have displayed outside my portable! It could say, “13 0 Days Without an Incident.”

The kids took a science benchmark test today, and, as usual, I was amazed at some of their misinformation. Of all of the topics that we have talked about in science this year, I felt that the kids had gotten the most out of our study of the Solar System. They really seemed to enjoy it and anticipate it, and so I figured that they had learned a lot. Or at least the basics. However, according to this test, Lindsay and Jessica think the Earth revolves around the moon! And Rose thinks that the Sun is a comet, while Miguel and Salma think it’s a planet! I don’t know why they would think that — I’ve told them all along that the Sun is a giant light bulb that God controls with The Clapper.

Most of these kids just aren’t very science-minded at all. I’ve taken to making my own multiple-choice tests after each chapter, and I always put one or two answers on there that are utterly ridiculous. I mean, no one should be choosing these answers, yet someone always does. I’ll give you an example.

A few weeks ago, I gave a test over a chapter on forest ecosystems. One question was, “What are the 3 layers of a rain forest?”

The answer choices were:
A) First story, second story, ground floor
B) Leaves, branches, soil
C) Canopy, understory, forest floor
D) Strawberry, chocolate, vanilla

Jessica chose D!! How on earth do you answer a question about rain forests with freakin’ ice cream flavors?!? OK, I’m calm. I’m good. Moving on...

Our second (and final) parent-teacher conference was tonight — part of the reason I’m writing this so late. It was much more subdued this time than last. Nothing like Chassity’s mother — “readings while she drivings.” They moved away not long after that first conference night.

Sally’s mom and Zaphonalia’s parents were no-shows — no big surprise there, unfortunately. Krissy’s parents showed up unscheduled, which WAS a huge surprise, because we’ve been trying to get ahold of them for about a month now. They signed some papers that will allow Krissy to have the TAKS math test read to her, which is great, because she knows the math, she just has trouble reading the words.

We met with Carlos’ parents and Anita’s mother — not because of any problems, but just to stress the importance of home environment and support. It was funny how much Carlos looks like his father, except for the mustache. That’s right, his father doesn’t have a mustache. Ralph’s mother came as well, and we had a good talk with her (through a translator). Ralph is not a bad kid, he’s just lazy, and he allows himself to be influenced by others.

Speaking of influencers, Marvin’s mother, God bless her, came up once again. We had the usual discourse with us informing her of his recent indiscretions and she apologizing for his behavior. I did get her to sign a paper requesting that Marvin be removed from the Talented and Gifted program, so now at least he won’t be missing any more class time. Oh wait, did I just purposely arrange for more interaction time with Marvin?? What was I thinking??

Only one more day until Spring Break. What do you plan on doing with your week off? Oh THAT’S right, you don’t GET a week off!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry, dude.
Later,
Scott Free

Date: Friday, March 12, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Where did they grow you?
Hey you drone!
Spring Break is finally here! And not a moment too soon. We got a new kid today, and after dealing with him, I’m going to need the recovery time! Officially, he’s in Mrs. Swanson’s class, but since he enrolled around 10:20, he was only over there for about ten minutes before switching. And then I had the joy of serving him for the rest of the day.

This new kid’s name is Jun’tober. I can only guess that his parents didn’t want him to forget when their birthdays are. He’s certainly not the only kid at the school named after a time of year, though. There’s a Summer in the 1st grade, a Solstice in the 6th grade, and sweet little Vernal Equinox in Kindergarten.

Jun’tober came into class wearing an earring. This is a big no-no for male students at the school. So while the other kids were working on the Problem of the Day, I told him that he would have to remove the little gold stud. He complained that the hole would close up, but I finally convinced him that the rule was unbendable. No jokes about kids with holes in their heads, please.

Do you remember my description of Mark Peter’s first day at our school? This was pretty much a re-run of that day. We got set up to take our Friday tests. We took the multiplication test (for the privilege of moving forward on the football field) first, and then I passed out a test with word problems. It became quickly apparent that Jun’tober could not read at all (just like Mark Peter).

I read the first question aloud to him and told him to raise his hand when he was ready for me to come back and read the next one. This worked well enough for the first five or six questions, but the next time I approached his desk, he had already bubbled in answers for all twelve. When I tried to read a question to him, he insisted that he was finished. When I asked him to show me how he had arrived at some of his answers, he got mad and actually left the room! Threw a tantrum, got up and walked right out the door (just like Mark Peter).

I nearly blew my stack at that. I went outside and called to him to come back, but he walked steadfastly toward the entrance of the main building. I raised my voice quite a bit (teacher-speak for I yelled at the little punk to get his gluteus maximus back here) but he kept walking. Finally, I went back inside the room to monitor the other kids.

A short time later, I got the kids lined up for lunch, but when I opened the door, it smacked something on the other side. I poked my head out and looked around the door, and there was Jun’tober, standing between the door and the railing, rubbing his nose where it had been hit by the door. He had just been standing there, with his face inches from the door! I’m thinking maybe Marvin could pull some strings and get Jun’tober into the Talented and Gifted program. He seems like a prime candidate.

He eventually moved and the kids lined up outside. Once again, Jun’tober refused to follow directions, and he would not get in line. He hung back about twenty feet behind the last person in line. As a result, we were all the way to the cafeteria — me standing at the entrance, and the last of the line entering — when Jun’tober finally entered the building. I walked down to the office to get my mail, and when I left the office, Jun’tober had just passed the cafeteria and was approaching me. I told him that he needed to eat lunch in the cafeteria, but he walked right past me and into the office. Thankfully, Ms. Sheldon, one of the assistant principals, was there to intercept him.

To make a long story short (too late, I know), Ms. Sheldon reinforced the no-earring policy (after storming out of my room, he had put it back in), and I spent most of my lunch break listening to him tell Ms. Sheldon that I wouldn’t let him take the test by himself and that I wouldn’t show him where the cafeteria was.

Just like Mark Peter, Day 1, I said. If you recall, Mark Peter got into a fight with a girl on his first day. So naturally, Jun’tober did as well.

When I dropped the class off at music, I went to the library to check my email. Not five minutes later, Jun’tober entered the library, being accompanied by Mrs. Bird, who told me that I needed to take him down to Ms. Sheldon’s office.

So once again I got to conference with Ms. Sheldon and Jun’tober. Come to find out, he had hit Susan in music class, so Mr. Green, the music teacher, had put him in timeout. Time-out for music class is standing against the wall in the hallway outside of the classroom. Apparently, Jun’tober just decided to leave and walk around the hallways. Fortunately, Mrs. Bird saw him and took him to the office.

Just when we’re getting used to Mark Peter being gone, he comes back reincarnated! A return of Mark Peter, or someone even worse, is like Latya in a Speedo — something I shudder to even think about! Evidently, Jun’tober doesn’t act up only at school. I called his mother after school to discuss his behavior. I heroically restrained myself from asking whether her birthday was in June or October. However, I did inform her of her son’s behavior and asked some questions about his home life. She sounded pretty fed up with him as well. When I asked her what his strengths and talents were, she thought for a second and replied, “Nothing, really.”

And with that, Spring Break begins. Fresh on the heels of a new class terror and a loving mother’s affirmation, I get a week off from the nuthouse.
Talk to you later,
Nurse Ratchet

Date: Tuesday, March 23, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Bracketology
Hello my friend,
I’m back from a week off, feeling rested, recharged, and infused with a serious case of March Madness! I know you were never one for college hoops, but please tell me that the good folks at Heat Pumps Unlimited are at least keeping the office pool alive in my name?

Seriously, Spring Break could not have come at a more opportune time. And I don’t just mean because of all that crap with Jun’tober — who, by the way, didn’t even show up yesterday or today. No, it was perfect timing because the first round of the Tournament is always played on a Thursday and a Friday, and this year I already had that entire week off! So I didn’t have to take a vacation day or two like I always did when I was working with you guys. I could just roll out of bed, flip on the tube and watch hours and hours of round ball. Man, I love this time of year!

I also spent some time last week trying to think of some fun way to tie March Madness in to what I’ve been teaching. After all, it’s easier to teach something if you can make it fun. I pretty much immediately threw out the idea of impersonating Dick Vitale while I taught. The kids probably have no idea who he is, and they’d just think I had gone nuts if I came in shouting things like, “TIME FOR THE DIAPER DANDIES TO FIND THE PERIMETER, WITH A CAPITAL ‘P,’ BAY-BEE!!!”

I also considered a lesson on creating and reading bar graphs based on data from the tourney. Average number of tattoos per team, years since the last scandal, number of natural cheerleaders — that sort of thing. But that didn’t seem like the best idea, either.

I finally came up with a feasible idea. We’re going to have our own little tournament here at the school. I drew up brackets with a magic marker on a big piece of poster-board, and I put the kids’ names in the first-round slots. Counting Erica, the newest addition to 3F, I have thirty-two regular ed. kids right now — sixteen in each class — so the names fit perfectly into a set of brackets.

I didn’t do the bracket seeding in the usual fashion of the NCAA tourney, where the four best teams are placed in separate regions. If I did that, it would hardly be a contest. Those four — Kari, Rafael, Xander, and Tereelia — would almost certainly be the final four, and there would be no point to the first three rounds. Instead, I put the top sixteen students on one side and the bottom sixteen kids on the other. This way, the championship game is sure to be one kid who excels in math, and one who has had some difficulties. I think everyone has a chance to make it to that final game.

I put the brackets up on the wall today and explained to the kids how it would work. The “match-ups” will take place every Friday, and the person who gets the highest grade on his or her test will advance to the next round. The kids seem to strive on a bit of competition (as evidenced by the football field). I’ll be sure to set up some sort of second chance contest for the kids that get bumped out early so that nobody gets upset and doesn’t even try anymore.

In this week’s opening round, I have everyone in my homeroom playing against someone in Kelly’s homeroom. There was a lot of excitement, cheers, and anticipation when I read off the match-ups. Ralph was the most vocal, playing cheerleader for his homeroom. Every time I called out a match-up, he would tell the person in the room with him, “Ooooh, you can take him!” or “You can beat her!” However, when he saw that he was paired with Rejoice, he looked a little crestfallen.

Of course now my biggest temptation is to make my picks and fill in the bracket, just as if it was for an office pool. But I’ll let this one play itself out on its own. Oh, and in a stroke of inspiration (or maybe just plain Velveeta cheesiness), I’ve titled our little tourney “March Mathness.”
Let the games begin.
Hoosier Daddy

Date: Thursday, March 25, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The Hunt for Red Jun’tober
Hey dude,
Regarding your message titled “Brackets? We don’t need no STEEENKING Brackets!” — Hardy har har. Very clever. Very witty. I’m sure Tom Winter is giggling like a little schoolgirl over that one. But does everyone really want me to send over a copy of my March Mathness bracket? You understand, there can be no wagering.

Things have taken a strange turn here. I told you in my last email that Jun’tober was not at school on Monday or Tuesday. In fact, today was the first day I’ve seen him since that day he enrolled.

His mother told me during our phone conversation that he probably wouldn’t be in my class for long, as he was likely going to live with his father soon. I immediately volunteered to help him pack for the journey. No, not really. But when he didn’t show up on Monday, and when Tuesday and Wednesday went by with no sign of him, I figured that what his mother had told me had come true. That sweet notion was dispelled today at lunch.

In the teacher break room, after eating, Mrs. Fitzgerald said, “We got a new kid in class today with a weird name — Jun’tober.” I just raised an eyebrow, stroked my chin, and cautiously said, “Hmmm...What an odd name for a child!” But Mrs. Swanson had to go and admit, “Oh, he used to be in my class!” D’OH!!

I would have come clean moments later, of course, but I pretended to give Kelly dirty looks. We told Mrs. Fitzgerald and her partner, Miss Lake, all about our experiences with the lad on the day before Spring Break. It would seem that his mother accompanied him to school today and completely reenrolled him. New info sheet, new ID number, and voila — new teacher. As you can tell, I’m quite shaken up by the loss. I told Mrs. Fitzgerald that I would take Jun’tober back if I needed to, but that I wasn’t about to fight to make that happen. I’m very interested to see how long it will be before Mrs. Fitzgerald will speak to me again. But maybe Jun’tober just has issues with male authority figures and will respond better with a female teacher or two. From what I understand, he was perfect while he was in Mrs. Swanson’s class. Of course, he was only with her for about ten minutes...

Oh, and here’s some truly great news. We got the TAKS reading test results today. Overall, the 3rd grade had an 83% passing rate, which is pretty darn good for an inner city, low-income, ESL-heavy school! As far as my two classes go, all but five of our kids passed. Kelly has done an outstanding job, because some of these kids could barely read the words “cat” and “dog” at the beginning of the year. It’s a shame she’s pregnant and can’t drink any alcohol. Guess I’ll just have to drink for two tonight.
Talk to you later,
Tom Collins

Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: My favorite flavor...purple
Hey bud,
I’ll just let you guess who the kids were that failed. Most of them are pretty obvious, if you’ve actually been reading my emails. But Plakton was not one of them. He didn’t pass the test — he just didn’t have to take it. We got him into Special Ed., so he was exempt. Unfortunately, he’s only exempt from the reading test. He still has to take the math TAKS test next month. YIKES is right. I have been doing everything I can think of to try to bring him up to speed. And you had better believe that includes praying.

Praying might not be enough for the new kid I got in my class today. His name is Samsonite, and he is a very strange child. You know, I’ve seen several examples of kids named after cars, but any kid with a name like Samsonite has got to be carrying around some emotional baggage. (Cue rim shot) Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your wait staff.

On my desk, I have a container full of sharpened pencils for the kids to use. If they break a pencil, they go and replace it with a sharp one. If they are exchanging pencils too often, or if I think they are breaking them on purpose, I give them a crayon to use for the rest of the day.

This was Samsonite’s first day, but he picked up on the pencil exchange procedure pretty quickly. After only about two hours into class, he was up at my desk returning his third pencil (and getting a fourth out of the container) when I stopped him and looked at the pencil he was returning. The thing was shattered. Not your typical oops-I-pushed-too-hard-while-writing-and-the-tip-broke-off. No, this looked more like Bert’s pencils when he would get mad at a forecast meeting and slam them on the edge of the conference table. I gave him a purple crayon to use for the rest of the day. Samsonite, that is, not Bert.

Later, when I walked by his desk, I saw that the crayon wrapper was on the floor, and Samsonite was using a naked crayon. Upon further observation, I noticed two things. One, Samsonite had purple flecks on his prominent two front teeth, and two, there was a groove running the entire circumference of the crayon. Now I’m no forensics scientist, but I would have bet anyone a thousand bucks at that moment that those teeth would have fit that groove perfectly.

CSI is about due for a new spin-off, right? Think it would fly, a TV show about a teacher who solves classroom crimes and misdemeanors? This summer, CBS brings you, CSI: DISD. “Who spilled this paste? YOU, with the mouth full of white stuff, come here!” “Who’s been using my blue markers? YOU, with the Smurf fingers, stop right there!” I would propose it to the networks, but they never did return my phone calls about my other idea, “Fifteen Minutes, or It’s Free” — the reality show where a camera crew follows pizza delivery guys around. I even had a really catchy theme song ready — “Pizza boy, pizza boy, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they don’t tip you?”
Later,
One eyed, one horned, flying purple crayon eater

Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: (April) Fools!
Hey buddy,
Really, you preferred the distinct flavoring of periwinkle to any other color? I always had an affinity for burnt sienna, myself.

Happy April the first! Or as they say around here, “What’s that on your shirt?”

This morning, during my morning duty, I was bombarded with shouts of, “Mr. Woodson, you have a spider on your back!” and “Look, your pants are ripped!” Even though I did not fall for any of these — not even after the forty-second time — the kids always shouted, “April Fools!” with looks on their faces that suggested that I was the most gullible idiot on the planet.

As soon as the bell rang, the process began anew in my classroom. Miguel came in covering his eye and pretending to cry, but really he was laughing. Christy kept acting like she was going to pour water on my shoes. Twenty minutes into class, Carlos actually got out of his seat to tell me my pen was on the floor, when of course it was not. Tereelia said something and pointed, but, as usual, I couldn’t really understand what she said. Everything was punctuated by shouting “April Fools!”

So I played my own little joke. We did our Minute Math, and afterwards I had the kids turn their papers over. Usually, we do some extra practice problems on the back. This morning though, I told them that Ms. Forrest, the principal, had informed me that all third graders would have to pass a new test or else they would not be able to move on to the fourth grade. I assured them that it would be easy, though, only two questions that they had to answer. I wrote this up on the overhead:
1) 456,214 X 3,074 = ?
2) 38,612 ÷ 21 = ?
As I finished writing the second problem, I calmly looked up and said, “Aaaaand, go.”

The looks on the kids’ faces were priceless. There was a mixture of shock and horror. Their eyes bulged, their mouths hung open. No doubt Plakton’s bowels started to run again. Just a little bit.

I let the silence hang for about ten seconds while I looked around the room, and then I yelled, “April Fools!” The kids jerked in their seats as if they had received an electrical shock. They had been so mesmerized by those two problems. Then they slowly started to smile and laugh, and I declared that that would be the end of all April Fools jokes for the day. And amazingly, it was. I wonder if Kelly did something similar over in her room, because 3F didn’t try to play any jokes at all in my class.

Were there any good pranks played at HPU this year? Not that we ever needed an arbitrary date on the calendar to play jokes on each other. I especially enjoyed pranking Larry. He always used to (and probably still does) leave his computer up and running when he went home. So one day (this was before you started working there), I sat down at his desk and typed out a short resignation email. I made it appear as if I had sent it out to all of the company bigwigs, but the only people it really got sent to were Ron Philby, Latya, and myself. About two minutes after I hit send, Philby came tearing out of his office, completely frazzled, wondering where Larry was. I had some fun playing ignorant before telling him it had been a joke. It was definitely a shining moment.

Then there was the time that “somebody” — who shall remain nameless — left a revealing document on the copy machine. It was on Heat Pumps letterhead and supposedly from Bert, the company president, regarding the forth-coming move to Arlington. A move that was of course pure BS. Larry was the one who found the memo and started spreading “The Arlington Rumor” around, though I’m sure “somebody” knew he’d be the one to find it. Planned it that way even, you might say.

I didn’t play any pranks on co-workers today. Unless you count telling Frank Swanson that I was going back to work at HPU. That almost got him to stop checking his stocks online for a full two seconds.

Let me know what’s going on on your end. I’m sure Tom Winter did something funny today.
Later,
Jester Jack

Date: Tuesday, April 6, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The Force is strong in this one
Hey buddy,
Thanks for the hilarious update on what transpired there at the plant on April Fool’s Day. I love it! And really, if the head of manufacturing promises his people a steak dinner if they reach a certain goal, then yes, he SHOULD expect an email from AssemblyLineCow2004@hotmail.com warning him of direct retribution. I’m sure you have NO idea who this “cow” might be??

On to today’s lesson. The topic in science was Force. Cue the heavy breathing and blaster fire. Makes me wonder if Darth Vader ever made any obscene phone calls. “Hello, Princess Leia... Who’s your daddy? That’s right, I am!”

But no, not the Force, as in Star Wars. Force, as in the basics of push and pull to move an object. I came up with what turned out to be a fun and effective demonstration for the kids. And legal, in at least 37 states!

I used Thomson in the morning class and Marvin in the afternoon as my assistants, and we explored the effects of force on an object. I did pretty nearly the exact same things in both classes, but I know how much you enjoy hearing about Marvin and his exploits, so I’ll tell you about his role in the experiment.

Marvin sits in the desk at the very center of the room, for reasons I’m sure I don’t have to go into again, so I knew everyone else would have a clear view of what we were doing. We started off with a single force on an object. I had Marvin push his desk forward a foot or so, showing that force can move an object. Then I put my left hand on the desk and told Marvin to keep pushing. At the same time, I said to the class, “Now let’s see what happens if somebody applies a force in the opposite direction at the same time.” The desk was not moving of course, so I playfully looked at Marvin and said, “Go ahead and push.” He squeaked, “I AM pushing!”

I wish I had a video of the event. Marvin started to break a sweat while I just stood there serenely, with my left hand on the front of his desk. The only thing that could have made it funnier would have been if I were eating a sandwich or shaving with the other hand.

While Marvin put his whole body into the pushing, I looked around the room and told the kids that an object will stay in place when the same force is applied on it from opposite directions. Then, the kicker. I said, “Sometimes, one force might be bigger than the other. When that happens, the object will move in the direction of the greater force. In this case, Marvin is pushing on the desk with one force, but now I’m going to push the other way with a bigger force.”

By this time, Marvin was standing at about a thirtydegree angle with respect to the floor, pushing with all his might. If I had taken my hand off of the desk, he probably would have knocked himself (and several teeth) out from the fall. So needless to say, I was tempted, however briefly. Instead, I put both hands on the desk and pushed hard. The kids started laughing even harder, and even Marvin had to grin in surprise as both he and the desk slid backwards across the floor.

I had to be sure to tell Marvin to stop pushing before I stopped, so there were no children harmed during the experiment. We talked about what had happened and discussed a few other examples of force. Gravity, pulling a wagon, a car’s engine, etc. No van der Waals, sir, these are third-graders!

And that’s the story of how I taught the Force to my class. Tomorrow, we’ll work on blindfolded light-saber technique and hyperspace course plotting — which, despite what you may have heard, is not at all like dustin’ crops.
May the Force be with you,
Darth Grader

Date: Monday, April 12, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Fun with computers
Hey buddy,
What are you saying, you WANT me to rant and rave? Of COURSE I’m upset that Duke lost last weekend to Uconn, but I’ve been trying to keep that out of my emails. If Nancy really wants to know how I feel, tell her to call me, and I’ll give her an earful.

At any rate, March Madness may be over, but we’re down to our Final Four in March Mathness. On one side, we have Tereelia and Rafael; on the other side, Esteban and Miguel. Sure, the stage has been set for a David vs. Goliath match-up, but you know what they say about “Any given Friday...”

Today was relatively uneventful except for something that happened at the very end of the day. This week, my class goes to computer class at the end of the day. When I went to pick the kids up a few minutes before 3 o’clock, several of them started calling out to me, saying that they had something to show me. “Listen to this, Mr. Woodson!” they cried. Juan was closest to me, so I looked over his shoulder and saw his name in large print on the monitor. He hit a key, and suddenly the computer speakers blasted forth a loud “JUAN!” They had been playing with a voice modulation program, and I began to hear computers all over the room shouting out names. “SALMA!” “VICTOR!” “SATAN!” (Sa’tun’s computer pronounced his name just like the lord of the underworld, and he didn’t look too pleased about that.)

Mr. Stillings, who teaches the computer class, started yelling for the kids to turn their speakers down. I heard a few more names, at lower volume, when suddenly a big booming computer voice proclaimed, with perfect enunciation, “FART KNOCKER!”

Immediately all heads in the room whipped around towards Esteban, who was sitting there with a look on his face that was half terrified, half defiant, and half disbelieving that the computer actually said what he had written (yeah, I teach math).

Have I ever told you that one of the hardest parts of my job is NOT laughing when the kids do something they’re not supposed to? Especially when it’s something that I totally would have done myself. I mean come on, if we had ever had voice synthesizers at HPU, I know for a fact that you, Tom Winter, and I would constantly have been using it to say funny (and almost certainly inappropriate) things! I can just see it now, programming Larry’s computer to start up every morning with the words “PUT DOWN THE JELLY DONUT!”

Latya and I actually did something close to that a few years back. One day when Larry was at lunch, Latya accessed his computer, pulled up Bert’s ID picture (they were all saved on the HPU intranet), and applied it as Larry’s background wallpaper. Larry, being somewhat computer illiterate, had no idea how to remove or change his wallpaper, so he tried to put a spin on it by telling everyone that he was proud to show his loyalty to the Big Boss. He added that he only wished that there were sound to go along with the picture. As you might imagine, my ears perked up at that, and I was only too happy to fulfill his wish.

That night, I called Bert’s direct line and recorded his phone greeting. I transferred that to my computer, saved it as an audio file, and brought it on disk to work the next morning. While Larry was at lunch, I copied the file into his computer, and then set that sound to play with EVERY action. Open windows, exit windows, minimize, maximize, start program, end program. And everything in between. When I was done, I turned his volume up all the way, and then shut his computer off.

When Larry returned from lunch, the rest of us were nonchalantly milling about his cubicle, yet somehow he didn’t get suspicious. He sat down at his desk, and we all held our breaths. Apparently, when Windows starts up, there are a lot of programs being opened, because Bert’s voice started booming non-stop. “This is Bert Parker with Heat Pumps Unlimited. This is Bert Parker with Heat Pumps Unlimited. This is Bert Parker with Heat Pumps Unlimited.” All at top volume.

We were rolling in the aisles. Even Paul came out of his office cracking up. I glanced over Larry’s wall and saw that he could hardly breathe, he was laughing so hard.

That’s sort of how it was for me today in the computer lab. I stood there for a few long seconds fighting the laughter, while my outward appearance was no doubt one of rising apoplexy (look it up). Finally, I managed to turn to Mr. Stillings and say, “Excuse me, I need to speak with Mrs. Jones.” I left the room and practically ran down the hall to the copy room where I doubled over with laughter and just let it all out.

Thank goodness it was the end of the day, because I don’t think I would have been able to teach at all after that. I’m still having giggle fits just writing this, hours after it happened.
Talk to you later,
Mike Rosoft

Date: Thursday, April 15, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Something chicken this way comes

Hey now, I said we would use the voice modulation program to say FUNNY things, not vulgarities. I doubt that even Philby is deserving of what you wrote. And I for one am relieved that Esteban’s four-letter-word-that-begins-with-F was “fart” and not the alternative. I’m just glad that we didn’t have to hear the computer’s interpretation of “shout the fouk up.”

And speaking of our pal Marvin and his own private Bizarro world...

Today we were working on probability. The kids were spinning a spinner and keeping a tally chart for the colors it landed on. I was walking around the class observing, and I heard Marvin saying something. He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular, or maybe he was just throwing it out there for anyone who had ears. I had to actually listen to it a few times to believe what I was hearing. He kept saying, “I taste like chicken!”

I don’t know if this is some kind of family saying for him, or if it was just a perversion of an actual commercial catch phrase. You remember how Larry always used to walk into someone’s cubicle and ask, “Can you smell me now? Gooooood.”

At any rate, after about the fifth time, I finally yelled across the room, “Marvin, stop telling everyone you taste like chicken!” So if anyone HADN’T yet heard, they knew Marvin’s alleged flavoring after that. But at least he stopped saying it.

For some reason, this made me think of the old G. I. Joe cartoons I used to watch as a kid. At the end of every episode, they would have a little life lesson. Like some kids would be looking through their parents’ medicine cabinet, about to pop some pills, and one of the G. I. Joe guys would suddenly be there at the window saying, “You should never take any medication without adult supervision.” Then the kids would say, “Thanks! Now we know!” But I always wondered why the kids weren’t alarmed that this guy in military fatigues and combat boots was peering into their parents’ bathroom. It should have been G. I. Tom, a real American peeper.

Anyway, I kept thinking it would be great if someone in uniform walked through the door to say, “Son, you should never tell anyone that you taste like a bird. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. And wipe that fish stick out of your eyebrow!”
Talk to you later,
Breast Man

Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Aren’t you on TV?
Hey F,
I have no doubt that you are right on the money. If I ever do publish a set of memoirs, it will be 400 pages long, with one 350-page chapter entitled, “MARVIN.”

I’m not really a teacher; I just play one on TV. OK, maybe not. But I COULD be on TV, according to at least one of my kids.

Today we took a walk around the school to get a little exercise. Since we don’t have a playground anymore (due to construction), the kids don’t get a recess unless I take them outside. And, hot as it is, it’s sometimes good to get out of the classroom.

As we were out walking around, Tereelia asked me if I watched The Bachelor. You know that reality TV show where one lucky guy makes out with thirty women before rejecting all but one of them, proposing to that last one, and then breaking up with her before the show actually airs? Yep, that’s the one.

Tereelia told me that she thought I look like The Bachelor. I asked her, “Because we’re both tall white guys?” She nodded her head yes. She then added that I also resemble Keanau Reeves, Conan O’Brien, Peyton Manning, and all of the guys on Friends.

The current The Bachelor is a professional football player who plays backup QB for the New York Giants, and in all fairness to Tereelia, he and I DO share certain attributes beyond height and skin tone. We both have short, brown hair, and, um... two eyes... and a mouth. So I guess Tereelia was right! I should probably prepare myself for the onslaught of autograph seekers that is sure to arrive any minute now.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous? We used to make a few celebrity look-alike references back in the day at HPU. I know we thought Reggie looked like Agent Smith from the Matrix. Some people thought Dan Taft kind of looked like Jerry Seinfeld. Steve Potts definitely looks just like Lt. Dangle from Reno 911! Thank goodness he didn’t walk around in Daisy Duke shorts all the time — only on casual Fridays. And let’s not forget how Latya looks just like Brad Pitt. If Brad were two feet shorter. And Indian. And perfectly spherical.
Signing off,
Not The Bachelor

Date: Friday, April 23, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: You say potato...
TGI Friday!
I feel so stupid! How could I not have recognized you on TV all these years? But why isn’t your show called “Everyone Loves Bommerson?”

I am so glad the weekend is finally here. Though Tuesday is the TAKS math test, so we are down to the wire. Today was our usual test day, so it was relatively quiet and uneventful. Plakton managed to amuse me without even trying, though.

Because Plakton has qualified for reading Special Ed., I am allowed to read the questions to him on our math tests. He still has to do the work, though. I just have to be careful to read the questions and answers in a neutral voice, almost a monotone. My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Gibbs, used to read questions on tests like this:

“Question number four: Who shot Abraham Lincoln?
a, Robert E. Lee.
b, Hannibal Hamlin.
C, JOHN WILKES BOOTH.
d, Stephen Douglas.”

She was an elderly lady, and I really don’t think she was aware that she was giving the answers away by practically screaming the correct choice. When my brother was in her class a few years later, he told me a story about someone throwing a pencil in class. The pencil hit her desk, which she was sitting at, and landed on the floor. Mrs. Gibbs started yelling over her desk at the pencil, like it was a kid. “You get up this instant! You’re in big trouble, young man!”

So that’s the senility I can look forward to. But on to what happened with Plakton today. I have a signal worked out with the kids for when they’re testing. If they have a question, they raise their hand. But if they just need to get up for Kleenex, they raise one finger. (Index finger, buddy!) That way, if I’m across the room, or helping someone else, I can just look up at them and nod yes or no.

Today, I happened to be walking by Plakton’s desk right as he raised one finger into the air. However, he continued to write on his test as he held his hand up, so he didn’t notice me standing there. You never know with Plakton, that finger might be a pre-emptive strike on his own eye, or it might be a signal that his innards are about to let loose. Just to be sure, I bent over and asked, “Do you need a Kleenex?” He looked up and answered, “No, I just need a tissue.”

Sometimes I think Plakton lives in the Twilight Zone. It would not surprise me at all to have him come running into the room one day screaming, “IT’S A COOKBOOK!”

And speaking of people who live in their own world... Based on certain observations, I’ve come to the conclusion that Samsonite thinks I’m a dinosaur. Allow me to explain. Often when a student is playing around and they shouldn’t be, I can just glare at them for a few seconds, and that is enough to get them back on track. However, that little trick doesn’t work with Samsonite.

Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex first attacks the people, and the main scientist tells everyone not to move, because reptiles can’t see something if it isn’t moving? This is the approach Samsonite takes with me. When I catch him playing with his crayons or pencils, instead of redirecting his attention to where it should be, he just freezes. He starts breathing shallow breaths. His eyes dart from side to side and back to me, but the rest of his body never moves. I can sit there and watch him for minutes at a time, but as soon as I look away, he goes right back to playing. If I look again, he freezes again.

I’ve found that the best way to get him to actually stop is to slam my foot on the floor, let out a huge roar, and occasionally eat the child next to him. I mean, you’ve got to maintain the illusion, right?
Later,
Tyrannosaurus Tex

Date:Tuesday, April 27, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The day of reckoning
Hey dude,
Today has been a truly exhausting day. The TAKS math test was today. Of course I was stressed last month when the kids took the reading test, but today even more so because this is MY core subject. I feel like my worth as a teacher will be proven or dispelled with the results from today.

We started off the day with a quick review — my homeroom first, then Kelly’s. I had made up a list that had about twenty-five topics on it, but Mrs. Fitzgerald wisely advised me to cut that down to the top five. I tried to make things positive and up beat, to keep their spirits up. I ended each review by running around the room slapping high-fives for luck.

We did a bit of class shuffling before the test began. I put all of the kids that I felt absolutely confident about in Mrs. Swanson’s room. These were the kids that I knew without a doubt would pass the test. So once both of them were taken care of... No, I’m kidding, there were actually twelve kids over in Kelly’s room.

Four of our kids were in a group that got to have the test read aloud to them, so they were in a separate room. This group included Plakton, Carlos, Krissy, and a new girl, Carmen, who entered my class just yesterday. I got her a day before the test, and she wasn’t even in my room long enough for me to gauge her ability, yet her scores will count for or against me. She’s a very sweet girl, and I hope she does well, but does that sound at all fair to you?

Three of our angels — Marvin, Ralph, and Samsonite — took the test in another room, with a teacher watching them closely. I didn’t want any of them disturbing the other kids. Around midday, I went to check on those three and make sure they weren’t causing Miss Scott any trouble. Marvin and Ralph actually appeared to be behaving pretty well and working diligently. Samsonite, however, had already spilled his water and was obviously playing around. When I first entered the room, I noticed that he had his shoes off and had removed his left sock. After checking on Marvin and Ralph, I walked over to Samsonite and saw that he had put the left sock back on and removed the right. Rest assured, when I left the room, he had no water bottle, his socks and shoes were on, and hopefully the fear of God was in him.

So that left about fourteen kids to take the test in my room. It should have been fifteen, but for some reason, Jorge’s family decided to take an out-of-state vacation on TAKS day. I don’t even know why that would surprise me. He’ll have to take the test when he gets back, and I’ll be sure to TELL him why on earth would he miss the TAKS day.

Some of the kids in my room, like Susan and Sa’tun, I was pretty sure would pass, but I wasn’t positive because of some bone-headed errors they had made on practice tests. As for the others, it really felt like a crapshoot. They might pass with flying colors, they might squeak past, or they might fail spectacularly. It all depended on who showed up today. The kid who wants to pass and is going to try his best, or the kid who doesn’t care. I’ve seen both sides from so many of these kids this year.

Like I said, it was a long day. There’s really nothing that we’re allowed to do except constantly walk around, pass out snacks, and keep an eye on things. No filing, no grading, no reading Entertainment Weekly. But the physical tiredness of being on my feet all day long was nothing compared to the emotional drain of seeing mistakes being made and not being able to do anything about it.

I spent much of the day trying to develop mental telepathy, as my mind shouted, “NO! That’s not how I taught you to do that!” It was to no avail though, because Lindsay and Sandra and the others kept on bubbling in the wrong answers. On one question, I saw that Lindsay had added 3 kids and 10 pencils to get 13 pencils.

I started to feel a little light-headed for a while there, seeing my teaching career go down the drain. Mentally, I polished up my resume and contemplated the return to engineering. I could practically see the headlines — “Entire class fails TAKS due to former engineer’s colossal blunder!” All hopes of ever publishing my instructional tome, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Esteem,” evaporated.

I thought that maybe I had expected too much from some of these kids. Maybe they just couldn’t do it. One of my Duke professors used to say, “You can’t get milk from a chicken.” And I guess he was right. Of course, he also said, “A man without the ability to measure pico-amps is not a man.” So his pearls of wisdom WERE kind of hit-or-miss.

But then a more rational side of my brain took over. I realized that the many mistakes I had seen had not all been made by one student. Spread out among the fourteen in there, it didn’t seem as bad. My fears were further allayed at lunchtime when Mrs. Jones told me that eight questions in the middle of the test were field questions, meaning they were being tried out and would not count toward the scores. A majority of the errors I had seen were on those field questions, so that did quite a lot to loosen the knot in my chest.

Also, I observed that Susan and Sa’tun were living up to their potential and doing quite well. In addition, it appeared as though Zaphonalia, Miguel, Anita, and even Esteban (!) were on a roll. By the end of the day, I was actually feeling pretty good about the class’ performance.

Now we play the waiting game. Which is not nearly as fun as Stratego, Taboo, or Tetris. It will be nearly the end of the school year before we get the results back. Overall, I’m optimistic. Now I’m going to crash, and most likely dream of acronyms, equations, and pictographs. Hopefully Catherine Zeta-Jones and a big pan of lasagna will find their way in there somewhere, too.
Later,
Mr. FanTAKStic

Date: Friday, April 30, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: The Fellowship of the Pink
Hey buddy,
Thanks for keeping your fingers crossed. And please pass on my appreciation to the others as well. I received several emails on Monday from the good folks at HPU (including Philby!) wishing my kids luck on the TAKS. Carol and Tiffany also wanted to know who ever won our little math tournament, so you can tell them that Tereelia was crowned champion, with Miguel coming in second. I gave them each funky little water bottles with crazy straws, and they’ve both used them every day since.

Have I told you that several boys here at the school have been wearing pink shirts? Apparently, pink is the new gang color, and while I’m sure none of these kids are actually IN a gang (yet), I guess they want everyone to see how much potential they have. You heard me, I said pink. Here I thought that pink was supposed to be the new black, whatever that means, and not the new red or the new blue.

When I first saw a fifth grader that I know wearing a pink shirt, I thought there had been a laundry malfunction. The color that they have chosen is NOT a good shade of pink. It’s splotchy and uneven, like someone threw a red sock into a washer full of white shirts.

Today, my very own student Juan wore a pink shirt. I was of course disappointed for him from a fashion sense, but also because he is so much better than that. Juan’s brother is a fifth grader who hangs around with the tough-guy-wannabes, and he must be having some influence on Juan. I had a brief talk with Juan before he got on his bus today, and I told him that I knew what the pink shirt meant. When I asked what it meant to him, he feigned ignorance at first, but he finally answered, “It means pimp.”

“And what does that word mean to you?” I asked him.

“Like when you’re in a band,” he replied.

I asked him if he meant a band that plays music together, or a gang. He affirmed the latter. Which I know is a disappointment to you, because I haven’t forgotten your desire to start a band there at HPU. Though I still think nobody but another engineer-geek would think that “Cylindrical Tolerance Zone” is a good name for a rock band. Something sportsrelated would be better, like “The Pump Fakes,” or “Quarterback Sneak.” Of course, “rock band” is too generous a term, seeing as how you only play the triangle, Tom Winter wanted to make armpit sounds, and you assumed Latya could play the sitar just because he’s Indian. Do you even know what a sitar IS?? But I digress.

I told Juan not to wear that color again because it is not a message that he really wants to be sending. He’s a good kid; I seriously doubt we’ll have this issue again.

I’m still just totally amazed that anyone, much less boys, would be wearing this awful color. Pink to me doesn’t express toughness. Pink says to me, “I’ll give you your money back lady, but I’m keeping the purse.” There have got to be REAL gang members out there snickering behind their hands, high-fiving each other and saying, “Hee hee, we got them to wear PINK! What can we get them to wear next? Lavender? Goldenrod? Dare I say it...Puce??”
Later,
Pinkbeard the Pirate

Date: Thursday, May 6, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!
Hey buddy,
I have to say, I don’t really think Reggie is trying to join a gang. You may have THOUGHT he was wearing a pink shirt, but it was probably rose, or salmon. Or just maybe... his wife accidentally threw something red in with his white dress shirts.

You know, sometimes as a teacher, you wonder why kids act up, misbehave, say rude things, and so on. But then you don’t really wonder so much when you witness the behavior of their parents. Chassity was a good example. Let me give you another.

Zaphonalia was once again in one of her moods today, refusing to do anything I asked, bullying other kids, and sleeping in class. She’s not a narcoleptic (and speaking of, I’ll pause while you peer over the cubicle wall to see if Phil is awake or asleep), but she does doze off far too frequently for my tastes. Sometimes her mouth lolls wide open, and I’m tempted to see if I can throw M&Ms into that big gaping maw. But that wouldn’t really be setting a good example for the other little weeble-wobbles, I know. When I get on Zaphonalia’s case, she claims, “I can’t sleep in my bed!” Like that makes it OK to sleep in class. I always want to shout back, “Then sleep on the floor! In the tub! On the roof! I don’t care!”

I called her father after school, using the cell phone number he had given me the last time he was up at the school. I was quickly sorry that I had called. When he answered the phone, I could tell that he had been smoking something other than cigarettes. After I introduced myself, he responded, “Ooooo, hey, Missshter Woooosshhhhh...”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not really accustomed to speaking with people under the influence (unless you count Jimmy in IT’s four-Red-Bulls-a-day addiction). I thought about messing with him and saying, “Duuuuuuude!! You’re wasted too?? AWESOME!!” But I decided to take the high road (no pun intended), and besides, there might be some mitigating factor that I don’t know about. Maybe he has a prescription for medicinal reefer, due to glaucoma, or a herniated disc, or maybe even lacerated buttocks.

I didn’t linger on the phone with Zaphonalia’s father; I didn’t really see any point, seeing as how the guy was higher than Larry’s cholesterol level. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if, when I had mentioned Zaphonalia, he had replied, “Whozzat??” I sped through my complaints, and he assured me, Cheech and Chong style, that he’d take care of things right away. I have a feeling that he was probably more concerned with the dancing tomatoes and the talking monkeys at the time, though. I doubt he’ll even talk to Zaphonalia. This answers a lot of questions about her, though. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Or, in her case, I should say the fruit doesn’t fall far from the grass.

Maybe I can hook Zaphonalia’s father up with Baby Boy’s uncle. Together they could start a local chapter of Weed Whackers Anonymous.
Later,
Doobie Brother

Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: They’re making a break for it!
Hey buddy,
Oh my gosh, you’re absolutely right! I missed a golden opportunity to call Zaphonalia’s father Barry! I guess the shock of realizing he was in La-La Land put me off my game. Maybe I’ll call him again tonight, just to mess with him.

Now that the TAKS tests are over, we have a little time to relax and have some fun. Sure, another round of tests is coming up next week, (No Child Left Behind? No Child Left Untested Till He’s Blue in the Face is more like it.) But we need a bit of unwinding. Today, we went on a field trip to a place called Camp Wisdom. No, not Camp Wisdom the street, where all the strip clubs are; this is an actual campground area, with lots of activities for the kids.

I wanted to take my own car because I wasn’t really looking forward to riding on a school bus. Chipped paint, graffiti on the seats, gum on the floor, hard to work windows — but enough about my car. We did wind up taking three buses.

On the drive to the camp, the kids on our bus started up a rousing rendition of Old MacDonald. Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. Apparently, every single animal on the farm goes, “quack quack here and quack quack there.” Ducks, pigs, cows — they all quack. Later verses revealed that in addition to the aforementioned animals, on that farm he also had giraffes, frogs, penguins, and Mr. Woodson. Of course, all of these went “everywhere a quack quack.”

Our group was huge — the entire third and fourth grades — but once we were there, we split up into smaller groups and rotated around through the attractions. Of course, when I say the entire third grade, that excludes anyone who got in trouble last week. Marvin and Ja’ Wane, for instance, who got into a fist-fight at recess right in front of the assistant principal. For their efforts, they won a lovely parting gift of missing the field trip and spending the day in a kindergarten class.

My group consisted of my two classes and 3G, Ms. Dennison’s class. The first little area that we went to was a miniature castle, with turrets and little jail cells. Victor and Miguel wound up serving a lot of hard time in those makeshift dungeons. There were a couple of stockades as well. I guess the Marquis de Sade had a hand in developing this little campground. There was also a labyrinth out behind the castle, which was fun. The walls were about a foot shorter than cubicle walls, so I could position myself right at the center of the maze and see everything that went on inside of it.

Our next stop was a big cave. The kids paired up and went in holding flashlights. This was probably the one time I considered it OK to send a group of kids somewhere and then ignore their screams and shrieks. Thankfully, no one got lost inside the caves, and I didn’t have to mount a search and rescue. Though I did go through the cave once just to check it out for myself. Pretty nasty, actually. Lots of dirt, dust, and spiders, and a slight smell of tuna. I later heard rumors that some of the fourth graders were making out in the cave. Lovely. Next time I see someone displaying affection in public, I’m going to yell at them, “Get a cave, you two!”

Next up was a clearing with a couple of replica pirate ships. They were actually pretty impressive in their size and detail. We did have to stop Plakton from walking the plank and falling fifteen feet to the ground. Lord knows he would have done it, too.

After a break for lunch, our group continued on to “Fort Wisdom,” which as you might guess was created to look like an old Civil War fort. One of the activities at the fort was horseshoes, and while a couple of the kids understood the concept of underhanded tossing, many of the kids tried to hurl the horseshoes like baseballs. Just like at the castle, there was a jail cell here at the fort, which quickly filled to capacity. I REALLY hope this is not a premonition of the future for these kids.

Our last stop was “The Flight Center.” This was basically a giant plastic slide area, like you find at a McDonald’s Playland (are we still having your birthday party there this year?). Outside of the slide area, there was a used twoseater plane that the kids could sit in. With the steering wheel and pedals, they could manipulate the rudder and wing flaps. Which they did as violently as they could.

All in all, it was a fun day. Nice to get away from the school for a while. But by the end of the day, I’ll admit I was tired and just ready to be home. Maybe that’s why when Rose presented a problem to me at the slide area, my solution was not quite up to the usual standards. She ran up to me and exclaimed, “Mr. Woodson, somebody wrote a bad word on one of the slides!” My tired brain did the best it could, and I replied, “OK, well, try not to read it.”

I ask you, brilliant or pathetic? Either way, my batteries need recharging.
Talk to you later,
Gene Yuss

Date: Friday, May 14, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: I see red people
Hey dude,
I think you should definitely suggest a Management Bonding Seminar at Camp Wisdom. Sure, they could put Bert into one of the castle dungeons like you said, but just don’t let Larry lure Tiffany or Nancy into the cave.

We were determined to have two field trips this year, even if they are only a few days apart. After the trip to Camp Wisdom on Tuesday, everyone was looking forward to going to Flagpole Hill today. Flagpole Hill is a park over by White Rock Lake where they have lots and lots of open space. The park is only about a mile away, so we walked there.

All of the weather people were predicting heavy storms for today, and this morning, it certainly looked as though those forecasts would be accurate. The sky was black and dreary before school, and things did not look good. I started to put sunscreen on before the bell rang, but I felt kind of foolish doing that when it seemed so obvious that we would be staying inside all day, so I stopped. As you know by now, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day, so I am sporting quite the farmer’s tan right now. My neck and forearms are a lovely radioactive shade of red, but at least my face was protected by what little screen I did put on.

Mrs. Swanson, being pregnant, drove her car to the park, so she took all of the supplies — hot dogs, drinks, sports equipment, etc. The rest of us — this being the whole 3rd grade — made the trek over hill and dale, over the river and through the woods... Oh wait, that’s the way to Grandmother’s house. I tried to keep my class together during the walk, but that was just about impossible with kids like Thomson and Jorge on one end of the spectrum, wanting to lead the pack, and Lindsay on the other end, sashaying along slightly slower than a glacier. Fortunately, the teachers were spread out along the moving mass, so we could pretty much play zone defense and watch the kids in our area, regardless of class.

Once we got to the park, there were lots of activities for the kids. We had footballs, frisbees, and jump ropes, and there was a small playground. I tried to get a game of kickball going, and that turned into a fiasco.

I chose two kids as captains and let them choose teams. One team wound up being all of the biggest, meanest, most obnoxious bullies in the third grade, including Thomson and Jun’tober. If they had a team T-shirt made up, it would probably say, “Good sportsmanship? What the *@&# is that?”

Not only were they bullying and trash talking the other team, but they were the biggest babies on the field as well. The score was like 268-2 in their favor, but they all threw a tantrum when I put a couple of girls who wanted to play on the opposite team. These kids have learned to emulate certain pro athletes a little too well. Jun’tober actually refused to pitch to Zaphonalia because he was afraid she would kick it too far.

Speaking of Zaphonalia, she wore her “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” T-shirt today. She’s worn this shirt before, and I always have to stifle a belly laugh. Zaphonalia, you may remember, is a large black girl, and I’m pretty sure the only way she would have any Irish in her is if she had a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast.

I was so happy when it was time for lunch and kickball ended. After a couple of hot dogs, I joined a small group of boys who were tossing a football around. We started up a game where I would throw the ball to the boys one at a time, and they would get points if they caught it. Sa’tun and Carlos apparently thought I had a rocket for an arm, because when their turn came, they moved farther and farther away from me. I hit one kid with a perfect pass that felt like I had thrown the length of a football field. In reality, it was probably only about twenty yards, but I can dream.

I also got to toss a frisbee around with Sally, Pinar, Sandra, Erica, and Guadelupe. So I got all the gossip on who likes who, who could maybe be cool, and who’s a mean poopy-pants.

The walk back to school was a big headache. From school to park had taken us about thirty minutes. From park to school took nearly an hour! I found myself at the very back, with the stragglers, and I just could not get them to go any faster. We passed a man fishing in the creek, and once again, the children’s inner rubberneckers asserted themselves. Even my not-so-subtle comments about ferocious water snakes and their infamous appetites for children did nothing to increase these kids’ speed. We barely made it back in time to get everyone on the buses.

Now I understand why some teachers say field trips are worse than test days. Though a lot of fun, I am burnt, hungry, and exhausted. At least I can take care of two of those things right now. The lobster look will have to remain for a while.
Later,
Hell Boy

Date: Tuesday, May 18, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Does this come in cherry-flavored?
Hey Fred,
I’ve heard Tom Winter share that story many times, so I know all about the guys that sit out in their cars at White Rock Lake. Fortunately, we were nowhere near any of those parking lots, but we certainly did keep a sharp eye on all of the kids last week.

And yes, I am still glowing, thanks for asking. I think I could fry an egg on my arm, if I so chose. Where was the G. I. Joe public service announcement guy to come and tell me, “You should always put on sunscreen, even when it is pitch black with thunderclouds outside?”

Have you ever heard of the ITBS? It stands for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Iowa anymore. I don’t think we were EVER in Iowa, but it’s a test we have to take. Oh, and what a bundle of joy it is. We’ve spent the last two weeks (not counting field trips, obviously) pretty much undoing all of the TAKS strategies that we’ve given the kids all year long. The TAKS is an untimed test, so we drilled into the kids the need to take their time, show every bit of work they’d done, and check every answer for mistakes. Now here comes the ITBS, which is a timed test — if they take their time and show their work, they will not finish! And even worse, they are not allowed to write in their books. So for a computation problem like 324 X 8, the kids have to copy it from their test booklet to a scratch piece of paper, solve it, and then fill in a bubble on a THIRD piece of paper! You know as well as I do that some professional engineers (who shall remain nameless) can’t even shuffle 3 pieces of paper at the same time!

Anyway, enough ranting about the system. I do have a funny story for you today. It involves Samsonite. You remember Samsonite, right? Captain Crayon?

The story is funny now, but at first I was pretty upset. Before I get to Samsonite’s genius, let me describe the ITBS bubble sheet for you. It’s basically an 8 ½ X 11 Scantron, with answer bubbles on one side, and information bubbles on the other. Information being name, student ID number, race, gender, etc. Since this is standardized, all of the bubble sheets were already pre-coded, which means each sheet had already been stamped with all of that info for each child. All of the bubbles were blank, and I explained to the kids that they were to leave that side of the page alone, not to write anything or fill in those bubbles.

Well, when I collected Samsonite’s bubble sheet, I immediately noticed something amiss. He had written his name everywhere. Not only did he bubble in the name section and write “Samsonite” in the boxes (like I had instructed the kids not to), he had also filled in his name in the space for Student ID. On the backside, there was a line proceeded by “Section Name” and guess what? He wrote his name there, too!

I’ve heard people joke that you get 200 points on the SAT just for writing your name. Maybe Samsonite heard this and thought he could score an easy 1000 if he wrote his name five times.

But wait — there’s more!! I told you this was a timed test, right? So usually, if the kids were running out of time, they would bubble in all of the “C” answer choices for the questions that were still left. Samsonite obviously had that tactic in mind, but instead of filling in individual bubbles, he made a big rectangle around ALL of the “C”s and then he darkened in the entire rectangle!

And we’re not done yet! I learned today that crayons are not the only things this boy eats when he gets hungry. The child had chewed off one corner of the Scantron! I kid you not, Fred, there was a triangle about an inch on a side missing from his bubble sheet. Here I always thought my brother was weird for biting the head off of his Princess Leia action figure when we were little, but Samsonite puts him to shame.

Man, I’m afraid to turn in this answer sheet for fear of destroying the grading machine! Wait, on second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all...
Later,
The Boy in the Bubble

Date: Monday, May 24, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson From: Jack Woodson
Subject: And the verdict is...
Hey buddy,
Sorry that it’s been a while since I wrote, but the endof-year crunch has gotten to me. But don’t worry, I’m going to take your advice. Since we already know Samsonite eats crayons and paper, I probably SHOULD examine his desk closely to see if he nibbled on any part of it. Sadly for all of us hypernutritionists, though, Samsonite has left the premises. He withdrew last Friday. My Crayolas heaved a sigh of relief.

Today was a pretty spectacular day, for a Monday. And I’m not just saying that because there are now only two days left in the school year. We got the TAKS scores back today, and they were pretty darn amazing.

Around 9:15 this morning, Mrs. Jones came into my room and gave me the papers that had everyone’s scores on them. She congratulated me, and we whispered for a few moments about the scores. I needed confirmation that I was reading some of them correctly. As in, “This IS a passing score, right?”

The kids were once again spread out around the room, taking their last benchmark test. We just can’t seem to get enough tests in, can we? After Mrs. Jones left, I walked to the center of the room and asked everyone to stop working and to put their pencils down. I wanted to be sure I had all of the kids’ undivided attention.

I told them, “I have some REALLY good news, kids. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance!”

No, no, I’m just kidding. I told them, “Mrs. Jones just came in here and gave me some very important information. I wanted to say how proud I am of all of you because every single person in this room right now passed the TAKS math test!”

It took about five seconds for that to sink in, and then smiles started to spread around the room to match the huge grin I was wearing myself. Either not understanding or (more likely) just wanting to be recognized individually, Thomson asked, “I passed?” “Yes!” I replied. “Me too?” Lindsay asked next. “Every one of you!” I insisted, hoping I wouldn’t have to confirm each kid one at a time. (Though I WAS tempted to glance at the score sheet one more time, just to be sure about Lindsay.)

We had a few moments of celebration, then the kids resumed working on their tests. When we switched classes, I was able to say the same thing to my second group. “Everyone in this room right now passed the TAKS math test!” Again, the reaction was joy tempered with a bit of disbelief.

The final results:

The 3rd grade passing rate was 93%, which is awesome! Thirty-two out of my thirty-four kids that took the test passed. Carmen, who was absent today, only missed passing by one question, poor girl. She was the one who enrolled the day before the test. And to the great surprise of absolutely no one, Samsonite failed the test. In spectacular fashion.

Everyone else passed! Marvin passed! Ralph and Sandra and Jessica passed! Kari ACED the sucker, but that’s really no big surprise, because she’s a brilliant girl. Most amazing of all — Plakton passed!!! I can hardly believe that. I think that because he passed, I only need to perform one more miracle and I can be canonized a saint when I die.

We also got the results back from the second Reading TAKS test. Sally and Miguel passed, but there are still three of our kids that will now have one final chance to pass — in July — before being retained.

I know that I have complained about these kids at times this year, but I am so proud of all of them right now. I think I know how Kate and Leo felt in Titanic. The “King of the World” scene that is, not the “I can’t feel my legs because I’m clinging to driftwood in freezing waters” scene. WOOHOO!!!
See ya later,
Kung-Fu Master

Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: That’s all, folks!
Hey buddy,
School’s out for summer! Ah yes, the classic Loving Spoonfuls song is on high blast at my place today. Or was it Simon and Garfunkel?

We ended the year on a really good note. Don’t tell anyone, but we really didn’t do much actual teaching today. Not that the kids would have done much actual learning today.

Mrs. Swanson and I only held our classes for about an hour, then we switched classes really early so that at 10:00, all of our kids were in my room, and we watched The Lion King 1 ½ on video. If anyone had protested the educational value in just showing a movie, I was prepared to say that it showed the importance of fractions, reading a number line, and animal behavior patterns in nature. Except for the singing meerkats, of course.

After lunch, we had our end-of-the-year awards ceremony. Kelly made up fliers inviting parents to the ceremony, and we sent them out last week. Unfortunately, even being my partner for a full school year did not prevent her from writing on the fliers, “In Mr. Wooden’s portable.” Oh yes, I called her Barry all day long for that one.

We actually had a large turn out, and my room was full. The kids sat on the floor in the center of the room, and the parents — around 25 of them — sat in chairs. I gave a short little speech welcoming the parents and telling them what a pleasure it was to have taught their kids and what a good job their children had done on the TAKS tests. It’s strange how I can talk all day long in front of a group of kids just fine, but I still get nervous in front of a group of adults. Talking to the parents today, I felt a bit self-conscious. Kind of like when you ring the bell on the way out of a Long John Silvers. You know it’s what you’re supposed to do, but it’s awkward because everyone stares at you.

Kelly and I stood at the front and handed out the awards. Now when I say awards, I mean certificates, with categories like Math Award, Reading Award, Classroom Helper, Good Attitude, and Least Annoying. OK, I made that last one up.

The rule was that each child was supposed to get two certificates minimum. Some kids, like Raphael, Kari, and Tereelia, got five or six awards. We had to stop ourselves from giving them more. With others, we had a much harder time coming up with even two awards. Ralph, for instance. We couldn’t even give him the “gimme” award — the Completion of 3rd Grade — because he hasn’t yet passed the TAKS reading test. I think we finally wound up giving him an Art award and a P.E. award.

On Monday, Kelly and I each had our homerooms vote by secret ballot on who they thought should get the Class Citizenship Award. Sort of like a Little People’s Choice Award. They chose wisely. Rejoice got the award in my homeroom, and Pinar got it in Mrs. Swanson’s.

To Marvin, we gave a Classroom Helper Award and the Good Choices Award. Hellloooooo?? Have you read ANY of my emails? Of course we did not give him those awards! He did get the coveted Completion of Grade Award, and then I gave him a Science Award, which he actually earned. He did quite well on the science benchmark tests throughout the year, when few others did. (Perhaps he has a future as a Nutty Professor.) I wanted to give him the prestigious “Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out” Award, but Kelly wouldn’t let me. Marvin’s mom was there today, and Marvin insisted that she take a picture of him with his math teacher. That kid — for all his crazy antics, he certainly contributed mightily to a first year of teaching that I will never forget.

After the awards ceremony, many of the kids went home with their parents. When the dust cleared, I only had about seven kids with me and about fifteen minutes to kill before P.E. So I sat in the recliner and had them gather around me while I read The Grapes of Math, a riddle/puzzle book. It was a fun way to spend our last little bit of time together.

At last, the clock struck 3, the final bus took off, and the year was truly at an end. Teachers were waving, clapping, dancing, and shooting off pistols into the air. I think I even saw someone hold up a sign that read “John 3:16.”

Well, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, this is my last email to you in the ’03-’04 school year. Don’t worry, I’ll still be pestering you with email, but I most likely won’t have such high quality stories for you. You’ll have to wait a few months until I see the next batch of rug rats. Can next year possibly top this year? I can’t see how, but I can tell you one thing. This has been a very fulfilling year. I think I’m gonna stick with this teaching thing for a while, after all. At least until that Sports Illustrated swimsuit photographer position becomes available.

For now, I’m going to be enjoying the three best things about being a teacher — June, July, and August!
The bell has rung; class dismissed.
Later, mi amigo,
Mr. Woodson — 3rd grade math teacher