The Emojis

Although you weren't here to witness it, there was a coin toss to determine the title of this blog.  If the coin landed on heads the title would have been "Oh Shit" Thrice.  If the coin landed on tails the title would have been The Emojis.  Although you weren't here to witness the coin toss you now know it came up tails.  I'm a bit relieve that it was tails.  After all, "Oh Shit" Twice plus "Oh Shit" Thrice totals five "Oh Shits" and you can only talk about shit so many times before people lose interest.

Hopefully, after the nonsense in the opening paragraph, you are still with me.  Let's begin.  It's Friday morning at 8:25am.  I'm alone in the classroom when the telephone rang.  When I reached the telephone I looked at the LED display and knew the call was from the Administrative Czar in the front office.  "I thought I'd give you a heads up that you will be getting a new scholar this morning," said the voice on the other end of the telephone.  "There are only thirteen days left in the school year and we are getting a new scholar," I respond.  "That is correct."  "That will be a problem," I say.  "Gnu is at a doctor's appointment and will not be here until 11:00am at the earliest.  FBG and I are taking the scholars on a field trip and the bus departs at 9:30am with a scheduled return time of 1:00pm.  That means that there will be no one in the classroom when this new scholar arrives."  "That is going to be a problem," the Administrative Czar responded.  "Let me tell the BigB2 and someone will get back to you."

The clock advances fifteen minutes, there is no comment from the BigB2 on the new scholar, and I have to head to my bus duty station.  Somewhat concerned that things could go badly without Gnu in the classroom, I take a detour and head toward the BigB2's office to get clarification on what is going on.  When I arrived at the BigB2's office, she was sitting on the floor putting a puzzle together with what appeared to be one of our preschool scholars.  When the BigB2 looked up I said, "were supposed to get a new scholar today."  "No, Mr. Schultz, that is not going to happen."  "Not going to happen today or not going to happen at all," I asked.  "Not going to happen at all.  The parental unit enrolled the scholar in our school but the parental unit failed to mention that the scholar had a 53 label."  Get your note pad out in case this comes up again.  A 53 label is given to scholars that have such poor behavior that they are placed in an alternative education school.  Our scholars, despite all of the behavior issues that you have read about, have a 52 label.  That means that the scholars with the 53 label can behave even worse than our scholars.

Advancing the clock again and I'm standing in an open grassy area in the second largest city park in the country with our scholars as we have reached our field trip destination point.  The scholars are standing in a large circle with the other scholars from our school participating in the first activity when I decided to take a picture of them and send it to Gnu.  About ten minutes after sending the picture to Gnu I get a response.  "Aww!  It looks like they are having fun.  Just so you know, I'm still at the doctor's office.  The person examining me wants me to have an ultra sound because there is some concern about the size of the baby."  This message was followed by four Emojis that contained the yellow face with tears leaking from the eyes.  I'm devastated.  How can this be happening this late in the game.  I texted Gnu back.  The text message was one word, praying.

It's now 12:30pm.  We've boarded the bus and are heading back to school.  So far, no further contact with Gnu.  Just as we were exiting the park my cell phone rang, it's a text message from Gnu.  "I'm back in the school and I'm watching some scholars so anther teacher can eat her lunch."  I text back that we should be back in the classroom in twenty to twenty-five minutes.

FBG was sitting at the front table.  I was sitting at my table where I have view from the back of the room watching the scholars eat their box lunches when she walked in.  Her facial expression and body language told me nothing.  When she reached the front table, she turned to face the scholars and said, "tell me about the field trip.  Did you have fun?"

It's now 3:55pm.  The scholars are gone and I just finished putting the classroom back together when Gnu walked back into the classroom.  She's quiet.  Should I asked or should I just say have a nice weekend, see you on Monday.  After a little hesitation on my part, "everything alright," I asked.  "Yes, everything is fine."  I've been hanging around behavior specialist and behavior therapists long to enough to know that "fine" may not be telling the whole story so I wait for further comment.  Here we go, are you nervous?  Gnu told me the doctor was concerned about the baby's size because she hasn't had an ultra sound since the one taken to determine the sex of the baby.  Taking this ultra sound was not on the agenda for this doctor's visit so Gnu immediately became concerned that something was wrong with her baby.  She tried to call her husband but did not get an answer as he was at work and her tears are flowing.  The ultra sound results are in.  A measurement of the size of her stomach was taken and the doctor told her everything was fine and that your baby will weigh around eight pounds when you deliver him. 

There is an acronym that is used in several healthcare facilities here in central Indiana.  It is called A.I.D.E.T.  I'm not going to bore you with all of the details except to say that the E stands for Explain.  The E is like the game plan that a doctor, nurse, therapist, or housekeeping person will do whenever interacting with a patient or the patient's family.  This doctor failed miserably at Explain.  In failing to Explain, at the beginning of the examination that there would be a precautionary ultra sound, this doctor scared the hell out of my classroom partner who is more that a classroom partner, she is also a very special friend.  This doctor should have the E for Explain shoved up his ass for putting Gnu through that ordeal. 

Editorializing

This is from the Washington Education Association.  "The education budget was leaked.  It ends student loan forgiveness....."

This is from the graduating class of 1976.  Every penny of the college education expenses was paid, in full, by me.  I got no help.  I would not have begged for student loan forgiveness because that is not how I was raised.

This is from the graduating class of 2004.  I guarantee you parental unit that your money will be well spent as I leave for an out of state university.  I guarantee you that I will graduate in four years and that you will be proud of me.  Every penny of college education expenses was paid, in full.  Would she beg for student loan forgiveness?  No!  That was not how she was raised.

This is from approximately the graduating class of 2012.  She paid for her own education.  There was no help.  She has student loan debt.  She taught class all day and then tended bar in the evening and on the weekends to pay off her debt.  She taught, after the school day ended, office campus instruction to earn extra money to pay off her debt.  She is now teaching Saturday school to help scholars pass the state mandated IRead3 test to pay off her debt.  At no point have I heard her whine about her student loan debt, she is just slowly paying it off.

Ok, here we go in my recently discover matter of fact style.  Dear Generation Y.  You chose to take on debt to earn a degree and then failed to graduate.  Step down on off your stump and stop whining.  Dear Generation Y.  It took you six years to earn a four year degree.  Get off your high horse and stop whining.  Dear Generation Y.  You chose to earn a Liberal Arts degree from a private university that costs $30,000+ plus per year when you could have earned the same degree from a state university for a fraction of that cost.  Get off your band wagon and stop whining.  Dear Generation Y.  My recent performance appraisal stated that I was a "kind, calm and caring individual," so I'm going to offer you a few suggestions.  First, try and haul your lazy ass out of bed by 11:00am and get a job.  When you have secured that job, meet with a professional financial planner so your debt can be organized and a plan put in place to pay off the debt.  An lastly, stop whining to your immediate family, relatives, friends and any Generation Snowflake that will listen about you student loan debt, after all, you are the one that screwed up.

The curtain to another school year is slowly closing as there are only twelve days of school left.  Sometime during those twelve school days a young man will enter this world and an instructional assistant may or may not have a substitute teacher in the classroom with him.  How this will all play out is an unknown so if you want to hear the rest of the story you'll have to return next week.  Thanks for following along.