I do my best to walk steadily into my office. The lunch bell has just rung, and the weather is wreaking havoc with my bad knee. All teachers have bad knees, if someone were to give me a research grant, I'd happily uncover why that is. In my case, it's the combination of a skiing accident at thirty and wrecking my motorcycle when I was fifty. In my previous building, the ex hippie theatre teacher had two bad knees. He was over six feet tall, and looked very much like a sasquatch when he lumbered through the halls. That visual has stuck with me all of these years, and has served as my biggest fear. I don't want to lumber through a high school, looking my age and moving slowly.
I don't want to lumber along.
Today is 25 February 2022, the beginning of what has become The Hardest Year In Teaching. It's a bitter 20 degrees out, every joint is swollen and screaming at me, and Russia invaded the Ukraine yesterday. I am neither Russian or Ukrainian, nor are my students, or anyone I know. It is just an added burden on my psyche.
As much as I need to be quiet for the twenty minute lunch I am allotted in my day, I have allowed the floating art teacher to share the office with me. He was hired after the shooting and subsequent shuttering of the band classes, two things that are not directly related. Admin turned the band room into an art room. He has done an impressive job of putting artwork in front of the cages that contain the brass instruments. They looked like animals awaiting adoption at the shelter, and always depressed me. His choice to cover the bars with Monet and Renoir did little to cheer up the room, but went a long way to masking my association of abandoned animals to the instruments. I don't have to walk through there, thankfully, my office is in my classroom. There is a band office, but weirdly he does not seem to want to use it. He's on a one year only contract, just finishing out the school year. I guess bringing in his own fridge or microwave would be too much like a commitment. He seems to be pretty adamant about being temporary, he has no desire to stay. It wasn't just the shooting, he just doesn't seem to connect with this population. Which is the politically correct way to talk about a building that is 80% Latin X. I'm not sure when that happened, sometime while I was teaching in a district that called itself "A Premiere District", we stopped referring to schools by their socio economic demographic. We all knew "Premiere District" meant white, and we all know "This population" means not white.
I am unsure if dealing with this population has anything to do with the art teacher's transitional status. He was born female, and is transitioning to male. He left his old district due to homophobia and an acceptance issue among the staff. He never told his kids about his life, so he has never said anything directly to students, but believes that they know. Last week he overheard kids in class discussing a Tik Tock trend that involved killing "trannies". Several young girls have been murdered locally, which does not seem to be related to what he is hearing, but that doesn't matter. I do now know what it is to live that life, and his fear is valid. If I was a younger woman, I'm sure I would be worried as well. They are being killed and dumped on the side of the road.
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"So it's so interesting...." he starts every sentence like this. I try not to be annoyed. I invited him to share my microwave and fridge when he was hired, so it seemed rude to sit and not speak to him. I ` have noticed that his social skills are lacking, and if I do not respond or make eye contact, he keeps talking, so I could technically just type away on my laptop. But I was not raised that way so I face him and listen.
"The artwork of these students is ...I am going to sound insulting...my last permanent sub job was in a middle school, and this work feels like middle schoolers, not high schoolers.
"Why would I be insulted?"
"I don't know, I just don't want to insult anyone."
I shrug. "Their development was arrested for two years. Our freshmen have not been in a building since the seventh grade. They've been home, with laptops and phones. I think we've lost an entire generation. The littles will recover, but from sixth grade to freshmen in college...they're not OK."
"You're right. Your view is always global. I so enjoy talking with you. It's so interesting, I finally found out what happened to the band teacher."
I squinted at him. "Nobody told you when you were hired?"
"I knew he was hurt, and that he quit, but I guess I thought it was the shooting."
"Nope."
"Was the kid who stabbed him charged with anything?"
I shrug. I stopped asking questions within a year of coming to this building. I am not going to like the answer, so why ask. "He wasn't the target, it was like Mercutio getting stabbed instead of Romeo. The kid was after the AP who suspended him."
"They asked me if I'm applying for this job again next year," his social ineptitude was clearly driving the bus. "They're going to need another art teacher upstairs, and they're going to hire another band teacher I guess. I'm gonna go to the bathroom before the bell rings. Have a good second half of your day." He left the room.
I open the microwave door, adjust my chair so I can look inside of it. I sit, staring at the empty microwave, like a child watches cartoons.
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