"Miss, can I go get math help during this class? I have an A and my project is done, I'm sorry to ask. My math partner got shot right before Thanksgiving, remember the one that got passed around Snapchat? He's my math partner. Well, was, he didn't come back after Thanksgiving. Neither did my math teacher, he hasn't come back yet and nobody knows if he's going to. They got a sub last week, after two weeks of the art teacher subbing, he was really nice, don't get me wrong, he really tried, but he's not a math teacher. We got a math math sub last week, but she's still trying to manage everyone's freak outs. Nobody told her about the shooting before Thanksgiving-which sounds stupid because it was on the news, it's not like she didn't know- and the kids in classes are all telling her terrible stories like someone died, and some are like pretending to have freakouts and leaving class. I don't like the way my classmates are behaving, and I don't think this sub is going to stay, I think it's the same sub from before the break, I mean they look the same but her hair is different and you know how all math teacher look alike, but I have a B in the class and I'm not going to keep it, or do well on the SAT, if I don't go get help. My teacher from last year said she'd help me, Thank God, but she doesn't have any off hours, so I have to go during her freshman class and she'll help me while they're working. And since I have an A in this class and my project is done, I was hoping you would let me go see her during this class. I'll bring back a pass. I'm really sorry, I just don't want to fail, I don't know how so many of my classmates don't care. How can they not care about their grades? I want to go to college. My art teacher said I could get scholarships, but my grades have to be good enough to get accepted into the school. I'm not very good at math, but I was really starting to get it right before Covid. I did OK in remote because I could work in groups with smarter kids. Now I'm just lost. It's not that my partner was smart, he was just someone to work with, and I like that, it made it easier to figure things out. Thank you for the pass. I'll bring one back after class."
She smiled at the student, who was still standing in front of her desk. He stood patiently while delivering his monologue. Unlike so many other kids, who talk while walking out the door. Or, simply walk out of the door. Hector was a smaller kid, wiry with deep, soft eyes. His eyes never registered how he felt about anything in a given moment, they were just soft. Kind. If it was not for the speed of his speech, she would not have known he was worried at all. About anything. His eyes seemed to register a constant calm, and comforting kindness. She handed him the pass and shooed him away with one hand, and returned to face the class. Every morning since their return to in person learning, she had to adjust her psyche to what she called "Flex Steel". Steel for obvious reasons, and flex because she never knew which direction the attack would come from. It could be admin, or another teacher. It could be an emotionally wrought student, or an angry student, or a disengaged student, or a frustrated teacher with an angry student. At this point, if a badger flew at her face, she could handle it. Flex Steel. Like an umbrella, she would just rotate the defense mechanism as a barrier between herself and the attacker, and the steel would bounce them right off, back where they came from. Many teachers and admin found her to be cold, uncaring. Students loved her. They recognized the defense, and knew that it did not always apply to them.
It was now February. The Colorado fires had already begun, devouring an entire community before Christmas. It seemed the dry spell was here to stay. There had been little snow in the fall, and now there was talk of only freezing temperatures with no precipitation forthcoming. The comparison of the weather to the state of public education was too easy for her to bother with, and mentally she knew it did not matter. Knowing that nothing matters and continuing to teach seemed like a ludicrous and disassociated mismatch, but here she was. Mismatched, crosshatched, patched and perplexed.
She looked down at her computer and noted that it was 24 February, 2022. She took a deep breath and began class, clinging to ritual. She started on time regardless of how many students arrived on time. She stuck to the lesson plan, adjusting only if there was partner work and an odd number of students. Gratefully with literature, reading and writing and grammar and analysis could be done with one or thirty students. She felt for the theatre teacher, who she knew had to function in scene work regardless of how many students showed up each day. At some point in September, attending school had become optional in student's minds. She was not in a strong building, so there were no consequences for the behavior, making the entire concept of education an exhausting exercise in existentialism.
Many teachers, including herself, had given up calling home when students were missing, or sleeping, or wandering in and out of classrooms. Without a strong administrative approach to consequences, or any consequences at all, any teacher's response became an exercise in insanity. Nothing new was being done, kids walked in late, yelled in class, attacked teachers and other students, with no repercussions from administration. The only consequence was the "F" for not turning in their work. Behavior grades are not allowed. Admin had declared that deadlines were irrelevant so kids could turn in work and get credit weeks later. To sum up: a student could arrive in class ten minutes late, leave to go to the bathroom for twenty minutes, return and yell at the teacher for suggesting that staying in class would be more beneficial, and turn in an assignment weeks late for credit and receive a grade of "D". So teachers just stopped. "Nothing happens, nobody comes", the theatre teacher would sigh when they would cross paths. There was no reason to complain, because nothing was going to change, and we're all just going to be told how lucky we are to have jobs in the first place. First world problems.
She checked her phone at lunch for news updates. Sometimes it helped to get a world perspective. Things could be worse.
She read "Russia invades the Ukraine" and closed her phone. She put her head down on her desk and stared at the opposing wall of her room, where a poster of Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia was tacked. There was one word over her head.
"REBEL"
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