He views the world through an autistic kaleidoscope, endless shards of twisting colors, bright and dark, some empty. His sidelong glance says, “Will she ‘get’ me?” Fragile tendrils of hope reach out to connect. This boy. Patch.  “Wicked smart”, a prisoner of his own perceptions.

People find him just plain odd. How to help him cope with his world? He’s so scared. I coach and cajole, probe into his fear with him, gently bring reality down, teach him to face deadlines and the adults who impose them. When he loses control during his unfinished accounting final and walks out, I drag him back downstairs to his classroom to tell his teacher what happened. Just a few minutes of compassionate “Attaboy’s” from this insightful teacher and Patch is launched. Close call!

I love his dry wit, the twinkle in his eye, his beautiful sense of the absurd.  He can make me laugh on the worst days, and he knows it. As I help him cover his huge Brit Lit book with one of the Marine book covers (he hopes to join up someday), I belt out the Marines hymn, and he’s right there with me.

One day near Christmas we are singing “The 12 Days of Christmas”. When we get to the verse “Eight maids a milking”, he offers this observation…

“I could get into that!”

Who will understand this boy?

Who will watch the moon with him?

Picture this. My partner and I are tutoring two students on genetic mutations. We just happen to be sitting on either side of both students who are side by side at a table, but working on separate assignments. However, we simultaneously hit the question about the ability to roll one’s tongue. In a moment of whimsy, I tip back in my chair to show my  partner that I can indeed roll my tongue. Oops. I’m falling backwards and crashing to the floor. Complete silence for a split second. But when the kids hear my embarrassed giggle and realize that I’m not hurt, one of them pipes up. “That’s what you get when you stick your tongue out at a teacher!”

Tiffany is convinced that she is a princess, and has us pretty much believing her. Tiffany writes exquisite poetry that can bring me to the verge of tears. She twirls into the room, long flowery skirt flowing out below her wesket, wild red curls cascading down around her shoulders. This morning Tiffany made her entrance, announcing in full voice, “Today we learned that Giovanni Fallopio invented the condom in the mid 1500’s. Men used to tie them on with pink ribbons. I don’t think that’s very manly  – do you?”

Midmorning, weather permitting, I take a brisk walk around campus, to refuel for the afternoon. I often duck into buildings along the way, delivering this and that. Keeps me in touch. On this particular morning, a sweet spring breeze pushes me along.

But when I return to my room, I realize that my phone is no longer in my pocket. I retrace my steps but it’s nowhere to be found. Then I remember my stop at the Science Building and hurry to the teachers’ room. “Has anyone seen a black Nokia phone?”

Awkward silence. “Come with me”. I’m handed my phone in a plastic bag. Yes, it has been fished out of the toilet. By now I have alerted everyone on campus to be on the lookout for it.

You can imagine how the rest of the day proceeds. “Rose, did you find your phone yet?”

“Yes”, I mumble sheepishly as I struggle to move on before the next question pops up.

“Where was it?”

Here is a place to rant and rave. Here is a place to vent, to protest the injustices of the unreasonable parent, the oblivious and demanding boss, the recalcitrant student. Real people, other teachers who “get it”, will listen and care, apply some TLC, and provide a sounding board for the most difficult situations. What would we do without each other? I walk through the door into the safety zone.

Mindlessly groping for my “Joys of Teaching” mug, I shove a teabag in and fill it with water. Into the microwave it goes for exactly one minute.  I plop unceremoniously into a chair next to my buddies. Grabbing a donut hole from the box that someone left on the table (who knows how long ago? Who cares?) I let the sugar and hot tea do their work. They seep into my soul.  Just as I’m catching my breath, one of the business teachers tells an unbelievable classroom tale that takes it away again, and I laugh till my eyes water.

“Yes, I taught the entire class with my skirt tucked into my panty hose, and no one said a word. Just as the bell was about to ring, one of the girls slipped quietly up to me and told me.”

One of the Math teachers jumped in. “That’s almost as good as the day I noticed a low snigger rumbling its way through the class.  I was so proud of my  crisply perfect geometry proof, but I didn’t see it as all that funny. It was then that I happened to glance down at the floor and there it was – a long section  of toilet paper trailing from my shoe. End of Math lesson.”

I will survive this day, and the day after, because of these friends and teammates.

But there are downsides. Occasionally, violence erupts.  One morning the Earth Science teacher and one of the Art teachers, both males, got feisty and began to horse around near the copy machine, inadvertently knocking one of the female math teachers flat on her back. Splat! I thought she was down for the count, but her eyes were wide open, gazing quizzically at the ceiling as if to say, “What was THAT?” The two gentlemen slunk away in a cloud of embarrassment and kept a very low profile for a few days. She survived the fall in good condition, much to their relief.  

They are mostly unsung. But I’ve seen them wrestling with a roomful of sweaty, bored 14 year olds on a sticky June day, capturing them into the world of King Arthur. I’ve watched them talk down a wild, uncontrollable teenager. I’ve seen them bring order out of chaos and get those Period 8 Algebra brains working. Kindness and patience, day after day. That’s  heroic.

How  often is  it noticed? Far too seldom. How long will an insightful note or comment carry us through? A long, long time.

Miranda comes storming into my room every day, enveloped in a cloud of doom. She fights me every inch of the way. I stifle the impulse to strangle her, as that is not an option, and the more she senses my frustration, the more she digs her heels in   So I sigh and adopt a tapioca pudding attitude of warmth and affection. Yes. She softens and we begin to brainstorm an essay.  How was Atticus a hero? I am trying to get her jump started. “Who  do you know in your life who is a hero to you?”

“Can I use you?” she responds. I  could kiss her feet.

Then she stalls out again, on the far edge of Senior Year. She tamtrums and earns a whopping 29 for Quarter 3. Now graduation is in jeopardy. I know I will take the blame for not intervening in time. I go to the academic dean, confess, and we make a plan involving correspondence courses which will be torture for both Miranda and myself. But a letter must go into my file. He shows me the letter he has written and I’m riveted by the last line…”one error in a long and successful career…” I feel my tears welling up. I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat and explain, “No one has ever said that to me before”.

In my college experience, information on classroom management skills was thin and sparce, nearly nonexistent. Thrown into my first job in a melting pot of challenging behaviors, I had to claw my way through to a few basics that sometimes worked. This is a bit of what I learned the hard way.

RESPECT. Respect the students and they will give that respect back to you. They know when you actually see them as valuable human beings, and they love it. Sometimes you are the only one in their world who cares.

Start each day fresh, no matter what happened yesterday.

Don’t smile until after Thanksgiving. Well, maybe Halloween. (JK)

Do not ever raise your voice. Screaming is unproductive. BUT If you never, ever scream, when you finally do, it can be beneficial. However, speaking softly may get their attention. They will begin to wonder if they are missing out on some secret.

It’s fun to turn the lights off unexpectedly. This will quiet them down. But use this sparingly. Then, in that tiny golden moment of silence, issue a profundity in your most scholarly tone. “Students, let us return wholeheartedly to our discussion of Avogadro’s Hypothesis.”

In the middle of teaching the Bill of Rights, if you notice their eyeballs rolling into the backs of their heads, throw in some irrelevancy such as, “Esmerelda couldn’t help but quiver with passion whenever Horace looked her way” or “Then Pooh asked Piglet if he wanted to play Poohsticks on the bridge”.

For the student in high gear, repeat the same request quietly and methodically, over and over. Lower your voice each time. “Homer, you need to sit down…Homer, you need to sit down…” etc. Speak right into his/her face, close up. This baffles the student and puts the onus back on him or her, right where it belongs.

When things are going perfectly, in that blissful moment, switch the lights off and say, “You guys are absolutely wonderful. Have a Reese’s!”

What is that commotion just outside my classroom door? Two girls are circling one another, steaming with anger, hurling insults. One towers over the other – she’s famous for picking fights on campus. The other one is a scrapper. A feisty little thing. The big girl is determined to manipulate her into starting a fight and getting suspended. Impulsively I step out into their arena and begin to plead with them both to stop. Their ferocity is palpable.

Someone calls for an administrator as a crowd gathers around us.  Meanwhile, for what seems like an eternity, I maneuver between them to keep them separated. Somehow they seem unable to touch me or push me aside – it’s as though I am encased in an invisible bubble. The smaller one is actually trying to listen to me; she makes eye  contact but the taunts of her enemy finally win out. She loses control and strikes out at her just as help arrives.

 Afterwards, I wonder what on earth possessed me to thrust myself between all that anger. Crusader Rabbit complex? No, more like a moment of well intentioned stupidity.  I was not hired to referee fights, at least not physically.  Not my job. I take a deep breath and tell myself, “Never again”.

I’m wedged in between Elsa and Ruthie, working with them simultaneously on different Math assignments. It’s tricky but fun. All three of us are flying. Just behind us my teammate is dealing with three freshman boys who are beginning to giggle uncontrollably. She sidles up to us and whispers, “Go to the bathroom and check your pants”. I surreptitiously grab mine but they seem to be OK.

At this point Elsa says, “Oh, I’ll put on my belt”. Plumbers Crack. The next day she comes in with the same problem, but no belt. Who would have thought we would be dressing high schoolers? Just then, In comes one of the aides and announces too loudly, ” Wait till you see Becca’s top – HUGE CLEAVAGE!” It’s true. Spillover.

How are these guys and their raging hormones supposed to learn about the Constitution, Basic Algebra or anything else, with cleavage abounding at both ends?