Saturday, June 7, 2008

#10: Journal Notes on Subbing Assignment for 30 November 2007

Note: As it turned out, I had a number of assignments between 28 November and 10 December 2007 at this same "Mrs. X" school. Unless you are checking in daily to read the blogs, it'll probably make more sense if you start with 28 November and read them backwards -- i.e., in the order in which I wrote them.
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MORNING MATH:

As of November 28th, my next subbing assignment was in woodshop at this same school on the afternoon of November 30th. The following day, however, the 29th, yet another half-day assignment would appear in math for 8am on the morning of November 30th. I immediately accepted that assignment as well. That meant I would be subbing for two different teachers in the same school, on the same day.

When I arrived at the school that Friday morning, I found Mrs. X functioning as a hall monitor, supervising noisy mobs of students. "Hello," I said, as I passed her on the way to the front office.

She seemed surprised to see me there so early. She also seemed on the chilly side but when she told me she was fighting off a flu, I figured she was just distracted and tired. "So who are you today?" she asked.

I replied that I was math's so-and-so for the morning and then woodshop's so-and-so for the afternoon. It crossed my mind that I should perhaps re-consider clarifying my spiritual stance as a continuation of our discussion of November 28th, but she seemed
out-of-it and I again decided to let it go. I had a subbing classroom to get to. She had her own duties. To shoehorn an awkward discussion into 2 or 3 fleeting moments felt artificial and too pressured.

The math teacher I was subbing for doubled as an athletic coach and "floated" as a teacher. His first hour, pre-Algebra, was in the English teacher's room next door to where I had subbed two days earlier with Mrs. X. Since Mrs. X had told me that I could use the bottled water in the sideroom between the two classrooms, I got a bottle first thing and poured it into my mug (I didn't want to misuse this "perk" but assumed the school provided it). Unfortunately, I made no xerox of the lesson plans for that hour and took no notes. I have a vague memory that it was a textbook assignment and that I simply walked up and down the rows.

Second hour, I had no class and no classroom so I went to the library. I have not yet mentioned this gem. I had discovered it two days earlier and was enchanted by it. One entered it on one level -- and one could stay on that level and walk around the entire
circumference, past tall bookcases, comfortable armchairs, tables carved of lovely wood, and computers and library staff along the rear. But one could also enter and immediately descend to a lower level, to a "sunken room." Again there were bookcases and lovely, round, wooden tables. One table even hosted a festively decorated Christmas tree. The dual levels made the room utterly charming and intimate.

I introduced myself to several of the assistant librarians and told them what a wonderful library they had. They knew that, of course, and we laughed appreciatively. One told me that, according to rumor, the room had originally been designed to be the school's swimming pool, but someone had changed the plans at the last moment and turned it into this stunning little library. The rumor may or may not have been true but it did make a kind of crazy sense. It was a great place in which to hang out, "swimming" through stacks of books.

A few younger students drifted in and asked my advice on science fantasy books (I think my dragon-loving reputation had preceded me). I was happy to help and pleased to see that the library had a fairly good collection (including all the Harry Potter books). A few teachers also stopped by and introduced themselves.

This was the first school in which I had spent more than a single day -- it was the luck of the draw, of course, but it really made a difference. Some teachers probably knew I referred to students as "young earthlings." The students who asked my advice on science fantasy must have heard that I believed in dragons. For that hour, I briefly felt at home and it was nice.

Third hour was a study hall, or "focus" class, held in a trailer reached by an outside walkway. I got there early, which was good because no one had turned on the heat and it was quite cold inside. After figuring out the heating controls, I wrote my name on the board but didn't bother with my usual introduction -- some had heard of me, others not. Some were interested enough to ask a few questions, others could have cared less. It was a Friday, after all -- many students are sullen and tired by Friday. They just want to get to the weekend. Personally, I was glad when the period ended. I felt no "spark" except from a few of the more serious boys.

Fourth hour was another pre-Algebra class, a shared class with a woman math teacher. She was wonderful -- very savvy and great with the kids.

When I was in highschool,for what it's worth, I got straight A's in all my math courses -- algebra I & II, geometry, solid geometry, and trig. I remember especially loving trig, working like a maniac to solve problems, and feeling a mad rush of joy when I succeeded. I have taken that maniacal compulsiveness -- and joy -- with me into many other endeavors in my life, which have had nothing to do with trigonometry. Yet it began with trig, and I honor that.

As a sub in math on 30 November 2007, it was good to be reminded of that. However, fifty years have passed since I took all those math courses and it was sobering to watch the "real" math teacher working with her students, knowing I now have absolutely nothing to give those students. I don't even remember, for example, how trig differs from geometry. I have forgotten the simplest basics. It was embarrassing and sad.

I told myself not to accept any more math assignments. Math isn't a subject in which one can show students a video. One needs to remember some basics. But those basics have fled from my mind. I have nothing further to offer.

I was grateful when that class ended and I was no longer the math so-and-so. I made my way to another part of the sprawling building where I would now be the woodshop so-and-so. It was ironic, really. I had once excelled in math but had then forgotten all the basics and was worthless in a math class.

On the other hand, I have never in my life taken a single course in woodshop -- I am very clumsy in the sensate world and clueless about the skills required in woodshop. Yet those students were willing to open up and engage in dialogue with me. They were a real handful, I must say -- and there were definitely times when I thought I was truly losing control and would have to call the office for help. And yet that afternoon stands out as a few hours of richly rewarding encounters with "young earthlings."

AFTERNOON WOODSHOP:

When my morning math assignment ended, I wound my way through the corridors to my afternoon woodshop assignment. When I walked into the empty room, it seemed like a Hollywood set to me -- big tables and chairs, machinery and cables floating above, more machinery connected to the tables, and all of it totally alien to a retired humanities professor like me. I had no idea what any of it meant. I remembered that the course's teacher had told me two days earlier that the machinery was off-limits when the regular teacher was absent, but I was still awed by the reality of what lay before me. It seemed quite daunting.

This was a half-day assignment -- that meant only three classes. The first students arrived only moments later. I introduced myself along the lines I have already explained in earlier posts. Then I turned on the video of a "Home Improvement" episode. I had thought this was a video about restoring old houses. Since I live in a c.1910 house, I was looking forward to this. But I soon realized that the video was a "sit com" with little relevance to any actual house.

I took roll as the video played. Two guys at a front table seemed interested in the video, even though everyone had already seen it many times before. The rest of the class seemed totally bored.

I tried to engage the bored ones. One student, with soft, gentle features, had shoulder-length hair partially hidden in a hoodie. This student reminded me of a friend from years ago -- a girl -- and I unthinkingly referred to the student as "her." There was raucous laughter, not from the student, who seemed surprisingly detached and mellow, but from the others. I was mortified by my error and scrambled to set things right. Yet the student himself seemed fine. I'm probably not the first sub who mistook him for a girl -- but I still felt awful. These kids are at an age when such things matter. I didn't want to contribute to some lasting trauma -- life is difficult enough as it is. Yet "she" seemed amazingly cool with it all, and I took my cue from him/her and kept things as low-key as I could.

In the next class, after my usual introduction, one serious young man questioned my data on dragons. I explained that dragon-lore appears in countless cross-cultural contexts, which leads me to suspect that dragons, in some part of the human psyche, DO exist. If not, why do we keep encountering them from China to Europe? I added that I'm not pushing dragons, per se. Instead, I'm advocating for an openness to the denizens of our own psyches, for that is where our magic lies.

He looked at me and commented quietly, "I like the way you think."

I should mention that the woodshop classroom had two doors. One of them led out into a hallway with a drinking fountain and bathrooms. The other led to a generic hallway some distance away from any amenities. Since students kept asking for passes to the bathroom, and since I didn't want to negatively impact their bladders in future years, I let them go, but soon discovered that the door to the closest hallway would automatically lock them out, once they passed through. Each student would then have to pound on the heavy door to get back in. This became disruptive for everyone.

So I scrounged about in the trash barrel and found a piece of wood I could jam under the door. This would allow them free access. I took the wood and went outside into the hall where I could install it. When I returned to the room, all my students had vanished. "Help, help!" I called dramatically. "Aliens have abducted my earthlings!" I wandered about, pretending to be distraught. "Help! Who took my earthlings? Help, help!"

I checked one of the back rooms where student projects were stored. No one was there. Then I went to the next backroom where supplies of wood were kept. One by one, the shamefaced students emerged. I could only laugh -- they were really funny. And they'd meant no harm.

In that same middle class, some of the guys turned on another guy and activated a hose above the tables. I heard a loud SWOOOSH of air and shouted at everyone. I have no idea what the hose was for -- maybe to clear away sawdust from various projects -- but I knew it could be dangerous if aimed directly at a student and I was furious as I shouted. Those holding the hose immediately disengaged it, but I made careful note of a red danger button on a far wall, in case I needed to push it to summon instant help.

That's the first time in subbing that I faced the fact that I could be physically outmatched by my students. That was an odd sensation, quickly dismissed. I refuse to be afraid of my own students. If and when I am, it's time to quit subbing. Until then, they -- and I - are exactly where we are supposed to be and everything is unfolding as it is meant to. Period.

In each of the first two classes, there had been one female student, but each had kept a low profile and blended in with the males. In the last class, however, all were males and all were rowdy. But they were also great kids. One slender guy, a Latino, was introduced to me as "gay." I was horrified -- were his classmates actually "outing" him to a total stranger -- and a sub to boot?! I felt awful -- what must he be feeling?! In my day, such an "outing" was unheard of. Even today, as too many movies indicate, it's horrendous and traumatic. But the guy --whom I'll call Miguel -- seemed totally okay with what was happening. "He doesn't understand English," one kid explained. So then I felt terrible all over again -- Miguel probably had no idea what was happening. I decided the best thing I could do was to ignore the "outing" and just keep going. So I did my usual introduction about dragons, ghosts, and so forth.

"What do you think about Area 51?" one youngster asked.

Oi weh, I thought to myself. Like I really need this. In a woodworkingshop, yet. But I have this "thing" about answering honestly -- and, as it happens, I do know some interesting facts about Area 51. A scientist I knew in the 1980's who had been in whatever the CIA used to be called before it was the CIA (OSA?) told me he had definitely seen evidence of aliens in Area 51; the evidence had been covered up by the government. One of my 40-something graduate students told me she grew up near Area 51 because her scientist-father worked there and he too insisted there was a coverup going on.

So I told my woodshop students about this as a way of supporting my own convictions about what is being concealed at Area 51.

"Area 51?" Miguel asked.

"He doesn't understand English," one of the others said. "He just transferred here."

I looked at Miguel, who looked bewildered, and I sighed. OK, I thought, here goes. So I pantomimed a spaceship circling through space and crashing on earth. I put my hands on both sides of my head, miming antennae, and making eerie "Twilight Zone" sounds. Then I broke away, becoming an American soldier with a gun. I sang a few bars of "Star Spangled Banner" and then aimed my gun at the alien. "E-eeeeeeee-E," I barked, waving my imaginary machine gun back and forth. Then I again became the antennae-alien, and I died.

"Area 51," I said with a meaningful shrug. Miguel looked entirely too "with it" and I suddenly realized he knew a lot more English than he -- or the others -- wanted me to know. I walked away, joining a few others who were watching the video.

After about 15 minutes, I rejoined the larger group. "What kind of music do you like?" they asked.

I sighed, but answered honestly, knowing they wouldn't understand. "I love Baroque music -- Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, people like that. I also like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Buffy Ste. Marie, even the Beatles."

Miguel started moving towards me, dancing in an eerie, sultry, vaguely threatening manner. Trained as a dancer in my teens, I reacted without thinking, snapping my fingers, moving towards him, making my moves, and humming "California Dreaming" -- Da, daun-da-DA, daun-daun-daun-DA-da, daun-da-da..."

The others looked surprised as he met me, mirroring my moves. No one expected we'd dance, not even me, but it happened so naturally.

Then we broke the mood, laughing, and everyone sat down together at one of the empty work tables. "Do you like Morning Wood?' Miguel asked in perfectly accented English. I knew then what I'd suspected -- they'd all been playing me.

"What's 'Morning Wood'?" I asked.

They all laughed in the same half-guilty way in which the "Lakeshore" students had laughed in an earlier subbing assignment.

"So tell me," I insisted, "what's Morning Wood?" I actually liked the poetry of the phrase. "Is there also a Noontime Wood, an Afternoon Wood, a Twilight Wood -- maybe even a Midnight Wood?"

They were off again into gales of laughter. This told me the phrase was a euphemism for something, probably sexual, unless it too was gang-related.

"Is it a gang name?" I asked point-blank. The uproarious laughter told me it was not. OK, so it was sexual. But I couldn't figure out what it meant. Irritated, I made it clear that I had no desire to continue a conversation that was so one-sided and we dropped it.

Out of the ensuing silence, someone asked me about witches. We'd already discussed dragons and ghosts, so discussing witches seemed part of the larger dimension. Before I could reply, Miguel asked about the *Crucible.* I was astounded. How on earth did this Latino kid in a small rural town in Michigan know about the *Crucible*?

"Do you mean Arthur Miller's play?" I asked.

He nodded.

"OK," I said, "that's not really about witches. It was Miller's way of exposing the toxic dangers of McCarthyism. He used the Salem witch trials as an analogy for what was going on in his own time."

I hesitated, then plunged in further. "I played Mary Warren in an off-Broadway production of *Crucible*," I told them, "and Tituba in a Grand Rapids Civic Theatre production." I raised one arm, playing Tituba, reciting her lines as best as I could recall after 48 years. "And de debil he come to me, an' he say, Tituba, if you serve me, I put you high in de sky an' give you pretty red dress to wear. An' I say, no, debil, no, but he keep telling me he put me high in de sky an' I must do this for him. I must do this."

In college, back in the late 50's, one of my roommates, Barbara Chin, was a Chinese student from Jamaica. When I played Tituba a few years later, I used Barbara's accent and was quite convincing as a slave woman from that region. I never lost the accent. Miguel and the rest of the woodworking class stared at me and seemed quite impressed by my sudden transformation into a slave woman. I enjoyed that moment, I must say .

The afternoon was nearly at an end and everyone was gathering up their book bags and preparing to leave. Then, out of nowhere, one burly young fellow looked straight at me and demanded to know if I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.

To me, the very idea seemed preposterous. It's anti-feminist and anti-human. It would be nice to have a "savior" to save this country from blind, greedy Republicans, but I don't think that's one of Jesus' gigs. But I had to respond -- it's that *geas*-thing. "I respect Jesus deeply," I replied gently. "I consider him a beloved friend. But I'm a strong, resilient woman. What would I need with a 'lord and savior'?!"

The burly fellow looked straight at me. "Then you're going TO HELL," he declared. With perfect timing, the final bell rang at just that instant and he and the other students scattered.

I watched them go and could only laugh. It really was just too funny. I'm going to hell because I don't accept my Friend in some phony-baloney role both He and I know is a total farce? Like He'd allow that?! Gimme a break.

I wrote up a few notes for the regular teacher and then dug through the trash basket for discarded pieces of wood. I was still enthralled with the smell of fresh wood in that room, and to collect discarded pieces of "trash" was an extra bonus. One never knows when one might need a small piece of wood for something-or-other. And I'm a scavenger from way back. Truly, there's a something mystical about wood. The "morning wood" breath of life is in it still.

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