A Gift With Words

Sunday, February 3, 2019

What a waste of a week.  Wednesday, an outside temperature hovering around -7 degrees with an anticipated high temperature that would be below zero, no school.  Thursday, an outside temperature hovering around -4 degrees, two hour delay.  Friday, an outside temperature at 18 degrees, twenty-five degrees higher than Wednesday and a two hour delay.  Why the delay?  Snow, 1.6 inches of the white death fell to the ground over night.  Academic time lost for the week, approximately ten hours and the bane of every teacher is rapidly approaching, the state mandated ILEARN test.

Switching to one of those hoity-toity private schools.  Wednesday, an outside temperature of -7 degrees and their BigB states, "we will have school all day, no cancellations, no delays."  Thursday, an outside temperature of -4 degrees and again the BigB speaks, "we will have school all day, no cancellations, no delays."  Friday, outside temperature 18 degrees but 1.6 inches of snow fell on the ground and the BigB declares, "two hour delay."  The polar vortex brought down death causing cold temperatures and the school was open.  The white death, total accumulation of 1.6 inches, fell on the ground, "two hour delay."  Go figure.

I had two ideas for the title of this blog post, Toughen Up Buttercup and A Gift With Words.  As you can see I chose the later one but Toughen Up Buttercup would have been appropriate for these two reasons.  Last week a teacher quit quite abruptly after a fine young scholar chose to direct a vulgar slang expressing in her direction that included the word ass.  A couple days later, as I was leaving for the day, I noticed one of our Overhead Personnel (OP) sitting at the rectangular table opposite the hallway from my half-round table.  With no pressing needs at home I decided to sit down with the OP for a chat.  My immediate comment to OP was regarding the loss of T5 over the word ass after less than three weeks from her hire date.  OP looked at me and said, paraphrasing, "T5 quit because of the word ass.  There have been a number of teachers called names that are a lot worse than ass and they are still here."  We both had a good laugh and then I got up and headed home.  You just read reason number one when it comes to Toughen Up Buttercup.

Here is the second reason for Toughen Up Buttercup.  We have a millennial teaching just down the hallway from T4's classroom.  This is a newly hired teacher, just graduated, and let the truth be known, I like this person.  This millennial has been a teacher an entire two and a half weeks when this texting conversation took place.  "Five f...ing referrals, three injury reports and a classroom that was destroyed.  This is the profession I chose to spend the rest of my life in."  Dear Millennial, with a whopping two and a half weeks of occupying the front of a classroom under your belt, Toughen Up Buttercup and welcome to the teaching profession.

Once again I have to remind everyone that I don't make this stuff up.  My day is over.  As I was exiting the school I decided to walk through the main office area.  When I was a couple steps inside the back door to the office I saw a first floor LittleFella standing in the hallway crying.  I recognized LittleFella as he has issues and has spent a fair amount of time in the office.  As I continued on my way down the hallway FBG turned the corner and was walking towards me.  When he approached me he asked me to turn around so I did.  We only took a couple steps when he stopped me, pulled out his cellphone, and showed me a picture.  When I looked at the picture I wasn't sure what I was looking at so FBG took two fingers, placed them on the screen, flicked them apart, and now I have an enlarged picture to look at.  Sitting right in the center of the picture was an opened, small, clear plastic, zip lock sandwich bag, and inside the sandwich bag was.....

For the record, I gave the exact same description of the picture that FBG showed me to my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and she immediately described what was in the zip lock sandwich bag.  If you can't figure it out text me or contact me via other electronic media and I'll fill you in.

When I finished looking at the picture I turned toward FBG and said, "you've got to be kidding me.  You took this from that LittleFella."  FBG nodded his head, I gave a little chuckle, and headed down the hallway thinking to myself.  "If LittleFella wanted to bring something to school it was better that it was weed and not a hand gun."

"I hate getting old."  I'm sitting here at my kitchen table and I'm in the midst of a senior moment.  "Oh my God, when did this event start," I was thinking to myself.  Let's see, today is Friday, I gave the document back to her on Thursday, there was no school on Wednesday, so this started on Tuesday.  Damn!  That just doesn't sound right and I hate when this happens.  Well, quoting Emily Litella (aka Gilda Radner), from Saturday Night Live back when the show was actually funny, "never mind."  Let's just forget what day it was and I'll continue with the story.

"Schultz, I need you to read something for me."  "Okay, what is it?"  "It's a grant application form.  I'm trying to convince this organization to support Camp Opp by providing some financial assistance."  "Are you sure you want me to read this as I don't have any experience with writing grants."  "Yes, I hate doing it.  There are too many questions, they want too much information, and the entire process just stresses me out.  Besides, you have a gift with words."  "Alright, hand me the grant form."  It took about ten seconds to realize how much information was needed.  There were multiple pages and I believe fifteen questions that needed to be answered.  "T4, this grant requires a lot of information.  If you don't mind, I'll take it home where I can read it uninterrupted."  "Yes, please do that."

When I got home I ate my lunch and then pulled out the grant form and started reading.  I need to be very cautious now so as not to ruffle anyone's feathers.  As I was reading what was written I came across some wording, be careful now, don't ruffle any feathers, that needed to be...…. adjusted.  Adjusted, yeah, that sounds safe enough.  Knowing that adjustments were needed I wasn't sure if I could write on the grant form so I sent a text message to T4 for clarification.  T4 responded, "yes," and I read on.  For about two hours prior to my evening meal and then another hour and a half after my evening meal I went through all fifteen questions and I made some notes, actually a lot of notes, on the grant form.  There were so many notes that I was a bit hesitant to return the grant form to T4.  The next morning, not wanting to be placed in the category of Toughen Up Buttercup, I manned up, walked into the classroom, returned the grant form to T4 and, for the record, I remained upright and on my feet.

The dates for the next fourth grade camping experience has been set.  This three day, two night adventure will take place the last week of May.  Pre-camp instructions have been prepared for each of the fifty or so scholars that will be attending.  Included in these instructions are the camp dates, forms that need to be completed, permission slips that needs to be signed by the parental unit, a list of frequently asked questions has been prepared, a list of items to bring to camp has been prepared, tee-shirts have been ordered, and I'm sure if T4 was sitting right next to me she could add to this list.

Time is moving quickly and there is one significant hurdle that needs to be jumped over, funding.  Below, you will find the link to Camp OPP.  Please consider giving a donation to Camp OPP to send these scholars to camp.  As I'm sure you've heard, when it comes to requests for financial support, no amount is too small.  T4 and the other fourth teachers work with several scholars that come from hard places so any financial support you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Here is the link to Camp Opp - www.oppcamp.org  Click on the link and it will take you to the Camp OPP homepage.  In the upper left hand corner you will see a white box with three bars inside it.  Click on the white box, the screen will change, then scroll down and click on donate to the fall campaign.

Thanks for following along and if the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise I'll be back next week.