Week One Postlaunch

Saturday August 18, 2018

It's rare that I sit in my favorite blogging spot on a Saturday morning and begin my next post but the weather stinks and I needed something to do.  Yesterday, after a challenging day in T4's classroom, I pretty much cleaned the entire interior of the house to help me de-escalate.  Today was supposed to be yardwork day but that got blown up because the weather stinks.  To further add to my frustration I typed the work Postlaunch in the blog title.  Initially is was typed Post Launch but I was uncertain if I had the word spelled correctly.  I was thinking maybe it should be Post-Launch.  My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was at the city market so I was stumped as to the spelling.  When all else fails I figured, Google it.  According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary the word is spelled correctly in the title.

Several years ago, when I worked for a management services company here in central Indiana, I had the opportunity to work with a gentleman who had the nickname Duck.  As I was passing Duck in the hallway one day I asked him how his day was going.  He looked at me and said, "Big Al, this place is off the hook today."  "Off the hook," is a perfect way to describe the start of the school year here in central Indiana.

One of those hoity-toity private schools is in the news on the local level, state wide level, and national level.  The issue revolves around the actions of an ministerial employee.  Here is the basic argument.  Did the employee break the terms of a contract that was signed or did the employee get placed, at least for now, on paid administrative leave, due to a sexual orientation issue. Next up, a high school located here in central Indiana had a brawl inside the school that eventually moved outdoors.  In the midst of this brawl seven scholars were injured, three of the seven taken to the hospital, and the following day thirteen scholars were arrested.  The final "off the hook," hit real close to home.  My school is without air conditioning.  It is hot.  It is humid.  There are, as of today, twenty-eight scholars and two adults crammed into a classroom that I can't believe was originally designed to hold that many people.  The scholars are sweating.  I'm sweating a lot.  At first I didn't think that T4 was capable of sweating until I sat at her desk.  There, sitting on her desk, partially hidden by all of her valuable treasures that she keeps stacked on top her desk, was a small round fan.

Okay, get out your note pads so you can write this down and use as a future reference.  I've decided on how I'm going to name the sixty plus scholars that will rotate through T4's classroom for math.  I will identify the scholars in this fashion.  Here are examples; T4-M or T4-F.  Next will be OtherT4-M or OtherT4-F.  The M and F are male or female.  The T4 and OtherT4 are the two difference classrooms that I'll help.  Hopefully that is not too confusing.

It's hot.  It's humid.  And it's the first day of school.  The morning went smoothly as it was mostly a community day so all of the scholars and adults could get acquainted.  At 12:45pm, T4 tells that the scholars line up, T4-M's on one side of the room and T4-F's on the other side of the room, as it is lunch time.  Just before departing for the cafeteria T4 gets my attention and points toward T4-F who is sick.  As I look toward T4-F, the scholar is puking in a wastebasket right by the door to the classroom.  I walked towards T4-F to lend assistance and at the same time I told T4 to lead the scholars to the cafeteria and I'll address the puking when it's finished.  T4 agreed with the plan, imagine that, and also told me she would call T4-F's parental unit to come and get her.  Fortunately for me all of the puke went inside the wastebasket making clean up real easy.  All I had to do was give T4-F a cup of water to rinse her mouth out, a paper towel to wipe off her face, and a squirt of hand sanitizer.  With T4-F cleaned up as best as she could be we headed to the nurses office.

As I entered the classroom on day two of the school year I immediately here this, "Schultz, we need another desk and chair because we have a new student."  It's hot.  It's humid.  I sweat easily and again I'm carrying a desk and chair from an empty classroom into T4's classroom.  Later that same day T4 is observing questionable behavior amongst some scholars on the opposite side of the classroom from her.  Something is not right and she is up and moving.  I'm not exactly sure what transpired once she got to her destination but I knew by her voice inflection she was not happy.  As she is returning to her desk she alters her route a little, walks up to me, and shows me what is written on a piece of notebook paper by T4-M.  Please note, T4-M sits at an alternative seating arrangement with four T4-F's.  I looked at the paper, read what was written, looked up at T4 and gave her my best you have to be kidding look.  Now I know you are all dying to know what was written on that piece of paper.  I'm not going to repeat the words but I'll leave you with this.  The words on that piece of paper could easily have fit the dialogue of a Stormy Daniels porn movie and they came from a fourth grade scholar.

An hour or so later T4-M's parental unit arrives to retrieve the young scholar and take him home.  During the conversation with T4, T4-M's parental unit stated that she has no idea where T4-M learned that language.  Dear parental unit.  Let me give you some suggestions as to why your scholar has a familiarity with this type of language.  First, if you have cable television I suggest you figure out how to block access to those channels that frequently post movies rated M for mature audiences.  Second, if your scholar has internet access, I suggest you do a history search to see what your young scholar has been watching.  Third, and I know this one will be hard to do, but occasionally, when your scholar is at home and is real quiet for a long period of time, I suggest you get off your backside and walk to see what he is up to back in his bedroom.

Sunday August 19, 2018

A brief note on the scholar, T4-F, who was ill on day one of the school year.  The parental unit of T4-F contacted T4 and informed T4 that her scholar is in a pediatric hospital and will be there for an extended period of time.  I ask that you keep T4-F and her parental unit in your prayers during this difficult time.

It's now day three postlaunch, that would be Wednesday.  As usual, being a volunteer that can set his own hours, I'm the last to arrive.  As I step into the classroom, still without air conditioning, and it's hot, it's humid, and I sweat easily, "Schultz, we have another new student.  I need another desk and chair." Off I go.  When I return reality sets in when it comes to adding desks and chairs to the classroom.  We are running out of room.  T4 scans the room and comes up with the best option.  We need to move the hexagon.  Not an easy task but with the scholars helping the move goes smoothly.  It's now late in the morning and there is a need to fill a time gap before lunch.  T4 looks at me and asks me to fill the gap while she gets some paperwork done.  No problem because now I get to do something I really like to do, make up a story.  Out comes the cellphone.  I find the picture I wanted and placed it under the document camera that puts the picture on a big screen in front of the classroom so all the scholars can see it.  It is a picture of TheGranddaughter, her doll named Big Momma, and me on my riding lawnmower.  My story begins, totally made up, I occupy the scholar's minds for a few minutes, and the next thing you know, T4 completed some of the minutiae of worthless stuff that goes with being a teacher, and now it's lunch time.

Day four postlaunch.  "Schultz, we have another new student so we need another desk and chair.  Yes, no air conditioning, it's hot, humid, and I sweat easily and off I go again.  The desk and chair are in the room.  The placement of it takes a few minutes to figure out as the room is really crowded.  When the desk and chair are added to one of the alternative seating arrangements I looked around the room.  When all of the scholars are seated at their desks, with chairs pull out from their desks, the aisle way between the chairs is real narrow.  So narrow that I'm certain that I will not fit through some of the aisle ways when moving to help a scholar with an academic problem.

When I'm not sitting at the hexagon I occupy a rocking chair that is in the back right corner of the classroom.  As I was sitting in my rocking chair looking at how crowded the room was this thought entered into my mind.  Given the total square foot of this classroom, now occupied by thirty-one scholars and two adults, I wonder if we have exceeded the room capacity for this classroom and are in violation of a Fire Marshall ordinance.  It was going to Google it but decided, it's too hot, too humid, so I chose to sit quietly in my rocking chair where I also have a really swell view from the back of the room for a couple minutes and do nothing.

The first five days of the school year are past us.  There are one hundred and seventy-five school days to go.  As I sit in my rocking chair and look at the crowded conditions in the classroom I think to myself, how is T4 going maintain discipline in this classroom and still meet the academic pacing guidelines for the math lesson she needs to get done?  From my view from the back of the room I know already that this is going to be a challenging year for T4.  I also know this.  At the end of the last school year I had options as to what I'd be doing this school year.  I chose the classroom that is led by T4 for this reason.  She is a damn good teacher, placed in a borderline nightmare situation, and I'm going to offer my support to remove as many obstacles that I can to make sure she is successful.

PS - I reconnected with a colleague from my original career who I haven't spoken to in almost ten years.  In doing so, I gave her the link to my blog so she can follow along.  To my colleague and, as a reminder to you, as we progress through the school year, I don't make this stuff up.