Blackboard Jungle

I’m at a school I don’t know, it’s in the neighborhood, but it’s tucked up on a hill in the mountains of Tujunga, kind of like, well, like an insane asylum. But nooo, the rational part of me says. It’s okay that this half of the school looks boarded up and no one uses it. That’s where the haunted janitor keeps his masks to scare the Scooby Doo kids when they come. Nothing bad can happen to me here, it’s not even eight in the morning, the fresh morning sun is unused, racing me to be the first one up here at the school, everything is yawning and it’s a new day.

There is no office, and I must have come in a side gate because I’m walking up three sets of stairs and still nobody. I finally find my way around to the useful side of the school, way up three flights and over two buildings, and there’s a nice lady who has me sign in and I’m going to be in kindergarten and TK (transitional kindergarten) which is a nice way of saying 4 year olds. So 4 and 5 year olds. How hard can it be. I know kinder is really the toughest because of age and no attention span, but I dial down my expectations to a whopping zero (which to me is about 75% because I can’t do zero) and head to the locked yard and classroom. I emphasize, locked.

Morning bell. Pick up the kids at the yard and walk them back in and they seem allright. I was warned this is a tough class, their teacher has been out with a heart attack and they’ve had about 30 subs. A mom says she is a volunteer and can stay for 2 hours, and Mr. M the aide who looks like a mild mannered pizza delivery guy who reads murder mysteries at night is my bearded helper.

We get breakfast done and talking about Halloween which was yesterday and it all seems good. I look at the lesson plan which says we’re supposed to do dictation for an HOUR and a HALF. Me writing it on the projector, them following along at their desks. Writing “I CAN. WE CAN. W W W e e e.” For an hour and a half.

I get them their papers, and suddenly the loudspeaker is coming on they’re reciting the pledge. I stand up with all the kids and I’m looking all over for the flag and the aide says “oh there’s no flag” so we all look around at each other pledging to nothing.

The kids have their papers and they have no pencils at their desks. In fact, they have nothing at their desks. No name tags. No boxes. No crayons. Hmmm. Haunted foreboding music here.

I find the pencils and pass out the pencils and start writing “I CAN” on the projector which doesn’t show up on the wall very well. It’s like the kids have to read it by squinting. The aide says “yeah for some reason it doesn’t show up.” We turn off the lights and it doesn’t show up at all. So lights back on and I’m writing and showing them how to start their letters at the TOP.

Then let’s just call him Demon #1. He disappears under his desk.

I don’t notice this. Because I’m not used to this. Most kids sit doing their work. But also suddenly Demon #2, is tearing his paper to shreds. I act shocked, take away his paper. I see that #1 is missing. He’s scooting under the tables. All over the room. Mr M is going after him. #2 is now laying on the kid’s table next to him and when I go over to get him, he ducks under the desk and starts scrabbling away.

The other kids are paused, or some are still doing their letters.

Mr M has gotten one kid back to his seat and is going after the other kid. #1 drops out of his seat under the desk again.

#2 opens the door and runs out. Mr. M goes after him.

I am standing there with my pencil. 25 other kids looking and waiting. Demon #3 then gets ON his table and jumps off, while #2 is back and playing keep away, taking a pencil and drawing all over the floor as he is scooting all over the room. The mom volunteer goes after him. Mr M comes back, and I say what is this, is this normal in this class?? He is nodding. Looking sorry.

All three of us adults spend the next hour alternately grabbing one of the three stooges and sitting them back down. Hardly any teaching gets done. At one point I give up and just ignore the kids who are running around and call the good kids to the rug and we try and do the calendar. By 10 o'clock, I let them out for early recess which I think is regular recess but there’s no aide out there so I stay out there. We were too early.

My blood is rushing through me, there’s something wrong. I have ten minutes before they’re back in the classroom to figure out how to fix this. The schedule says we have to do math for an hour. It’s one page and it’s just writing the number 20 for a million times. THAT IS NOT GOING TO WORK. As a sub you want to do what they assign, but THIS IS WAR.

Until lunch we try and stick to what the teacher left us, sitting in seats, doing our numbers, and I just give up with the three loose freaks running in and out of the room, tearing posters off the walls, letting the aide catch the worst one and return him. When #2 isn’t under the desks, he is hitting kids, screaming. My voice is breaking from yelling. At one point I catch him at the back of the room and he’s breaking every crayon in half. “Why are breaking the crayons in half?” I say, taking them away. “A voice inside my head told me to do it,” he says. OH SHIT.

At recess they are all piled on the slide in a suffocation tunnel of bodies. It’s a shortened day. I only have to make it to 1:20. Then I never have to come back.

At the end of the day I go to the office. You have to replace me, I say. For tomorrow. I’ve never done this, I say horrified. I’m not effective at all, I say. The lady looks desperate. Please come back tomorrow. Please. I’ll try to get you computer lab. Or an extra aide. I say what is wrong with this class. Those three terrible children. I see why the real teacher had a heart attack.

She says, and you didn’t have #4. HE’S THE WORST.

I know, tomorrow, I will have #4.

At night I go to bed with survival blood surging through my veins. I have to do something else tomorrow. I am on emergency power here. I have to throw away what they say to do and I have to do something extremely different. For extra incentive, I picture that half-abandoned school building as a big pile of money. They want to give me a hunk of that money if I can just get through the day.

I plan my strategy. I pack my sub bag full of all my tricks. I grab a squirrel puppet I know is lodged under Lilly’s bed. I pack pretzels shaped like pumpkins. I grab stickers. Stamps. Candy. A bell. I have songs and fingerplay memorized, from being a mom all these years.

In the dark in the morning before everyone’s awake, I sneak into the hot tub and look up at the stars I can see. I try to breathe. I think, Where’s the breath, as my other boss, the actor, says. I stare up and think about that star so far away, and our planet revolving, shooting out into space, all of us on this same galactic raft. It doesn’t really matter what happens today, I realize, looking at that star and feeling some humor about my smallness. It’s only one tiny thing, one classroom.
At the school. Wednesday morning. I drag my big bag up the insane asylum three levels. I only have to make it through one whole day. It will all be over.

In the classroom, #4 is there.

#4 is like 100% evil.

I have my emergency plan. The first thing we do after breakfast is get cleaned up, go to the rug. We do the calendar. There will be no running loose. I take the worst kid #2 to help me point out things on the calendar. #1 is tying his shoelaces to the table leg so when he stands up he will heave the table over on someone. I immediately grab him and yell in his face. YOU MAY NOT DO THAT!!!

He looks shocked.

YOU ARE IN SCHOOL!!

Another kid falls over like he’s going to lay down under the table.

SIT UP!!! I yell at him. He sits bolt up right.

Calendar boy has started to wander away. I grab him back, while also holding the arm of shoelaces guy. Both my hands are full of kid now. Using my hand holding calendar boy to point out the calendar. Calendar boy is not just standing there, either, he is yanking at his wrist that I hold, pulling me like an 80 pound flounder. Yanking or not, I am acting like this is all normal and easy to point things out on the calendar with a yanking, angry, terrible child.

Demon #4, the NEW EVIL, has climbed on top of the table and VAULTS himself into a group of three kids huddled on the rug like they’re in a bomb shelter. One of the kids falls back and hits his head on the hard floor. Crying. Injury #1.

Mr. M chases Demon #4 and gets him in a body lock. I stop the whole class and write a note for head injury to go to the nurse. Beautiful quiet flower in the front raises her hand and asks if she might take him. She takes his hand and escorts him out, a river of calm. I breathe in her momentary spirit. She and I will be enjoying our cancer later from bottled stress.

I go back to calendar holding two boys by the arms. In the back, the new kid who is in body lock by the aide, not able to destroy anything, starts SCREAMING. “EVERYBODY GET UPPPPPP!!” “EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME!!!!” He’s a complete radical. I’m actually pretty impressed, it’s like he’s seeing the room as it really is – that there really is no control, if everyone decided to leave, they could do it.

The aide wrestles him, covers his mouth with the kid’s own hands. The kid wrestles free and KICKS the trash can flying, knocks all the puzzles to the ground. He grabs the kid again, and bends him down saying “pick that up!” The kids is floundering against him, and he’s forcing the kid to reach down and pick up what will take hours to clean up with that kind of resistance.

If I let go of either of my two boys, they will take off. So I sit them next to me and try and teach with no hands. Very hard when turning pages of a book, especially when one of them is yanking me almost out of my chair every few seconds. But I DO IT.

Then I remember the squirrel.

Oh my GOSH I say. I forgot I have a friend.

I explain about Super Good Student Squirrel as I’m taking him out of my bag with my teeth. I put him on one hand by holding the kid in the crook of my arm. Horrible Kid #2 from yesterday (crayon breaker) is SUDDENLY and IMMEDIATELY transformed by the squirrel.

The squirrel is soft. He gives out pretzels if he sees you’re doing your work. He gives out ONE MnM if he sees you helping another student or cleaning up. And best of all, he gives out hugs, and kisses.

I’m not kidding, #2 Crayon Breaker is a changed man. #2 gives me no trouble the rest of the day. He neatly does his letters. He lines up perfectly. He helps his friends. He will do ANYTHING for the squirrel. He does not climb on desks or hit kids. The principal sees him in my line and stares at me with amazement. He has NEVER had a day like this. She is giving him reward bright yellow paper stars, which he cannot BELIEVE he has in his hands.

Since she is there I whisper I am worried about #4, the New Evil. Like maybe he is disturbed. There is nothing wrong with him, she says, fatigued, broken. He is just a spoiled brat.

In the classroom I find a disc with music and pick out two songs where they can move but without losing control, hokey pokey and freeze dance. I throw out the teacher’s plans. I have them sit on the rug while I hold both kids next to me. I teach them to freeze when they hear my bell ring. Since I can't pass out pencils or the one kid will draw all over the desk or the floor, I let them draw their letters on my dry erase board propped on my knees (since I have no hands) one by one, and give them a ladybug stamp when they do it right. I let them pick the next quiet hand who wants to come up and try their letter for a stamp, and the chance to pick the next student. When I see they are getting too wiggly (10 minutes) we get up and do a dance. I pass out the next thing to do, and we do it as a group on the rug. I read them my most fantastic and fun book from home because I know they will sit still they like a story. If I’m holding the two kids, even with the one yanking me, there is peace.

But let me be clear - I do have to alternately YELL IN SOMEONE’S FACE immediately saying IT’S MY TURN!!!! when they lay down or talk or try to get up. So I go from Julie Andrews beauty to snarling Medusa back to Julie Andrews singalong, and you know what? This works. Bipolar? IT WORKS.

At recess break for ten minutes I type to my two bigger kids in high school. “YOU ARE THE GREATEST KIDS IN THE WHOLE WORLD.”

This is the class as a whole. What I am leaving out is that Demon #4 is never contained. He belongs to Mr. M. The entire time he is being chased by Mr M. He picks up scissors and HURLS them across the room. Kids duck. I say he has to go to the office. That is dangerous. Somehow he doesn’t go. He leapfrogs over other kids, smashing their heads to the ground. Another kid to the nurse. A kid is trying to write, he grabs their paper and rips it to shreds. He screams I HATE YOU to me. A few times when my runner gets loose, I have to go grab him, and he falls down. I have to lift him up because I can’t drag him, and bring him to wherever I am. So much for the sub rule we’re supposed to follow: “don’t ever touch a child.”

After the first injury and nurse’s referral, each time Demon #4 causes a new injury, I stop the entire class dead. As I write the note for the crying child to go to the nurse, I talk in a shocked voice. I tell the kids that NONE of my friends should be getting hurt at school. School is a place you can be safe. School is a place to feel safe, and not have to worry. After five times having to stop my entire class to write a referral for five different kids to get sent to the nurse for injuries, they finally remove #4 from my classroom.

I alternate the squirrel giving out treats, the music, the stickers, the early recess. I do not let go of #3 until he is behaving, and if he starts running he is back with me again. He gets maybe thirty seconds of the day not being held by my hand on his wrist. By lunch the principal comes in my room. All the kids are quietly listening to me read a book. I only have to hold the one kid. The other one (#1) is sitting next to me now, but I do have to control him by glaring and threatening to grab and hold him. #2 is transformed by squirrel. The principal says you’re the best sub we ever had.

I deliver them to lunch. I go back to the room. At lunch I sit in the empty room and I can’t move or eat. I am vibrating inside. Shell shocked.

When they come back in for rest time, head on desks, I put on music. We finish the day with books, and math that we do together on the rug, and then I let them play with puzzles and blocks. Even the terrible ones, with a LONG discussion about block rules safety and etiquette before hand. They play nicely with the blocks. But there is not a moment the aide and I are not staring directly at the class. Bodies rigid. Perched to attack.

Leaving the school I feel bad for the kids who were so quiet and perfect. I should have given them more stickers. I should have had the squirrel visit them especially, at the end of the day. I was that kid. Sitting there quietly, doing the right things, and getting no reward. I wanted them to know that they, especially, were seen. It was like Schindler’s List, if only I had gotten to THOSE students.

When I got home my husband had drawn a sign that said MOM. BEST SUB THEY EVER HAD. With my motherhood book propped next to it. Look, hey there was my reward, right there. Hey!

My husband said he is so sorry for my last two days. He says I am a warrior.

I say I learned so much in those two days. I know how to work with high anxiety. I know that inside those kids there is the chance for a playful, creative person. In all of us, even #4 the ultimate radical. He’s going to get bigger. He has to be able to sit on the rug, and share safely his insanely out of control ideas. The pain was not allowed, but the person is still in there.

What else can we do but try and show him the way.

And do not overlook the power of a squirrel who gives out pretzels.