A Letter To The Regular Teacher

Hello teacher,

My name is Mr. D. and I 'guest taught' for your class today. No that isn't some attempt to hide myself on a blog. I wrote my name on the blackboard and wrote the pronunciation guide, but I've noticed that many teachers seem to go by a Mr/Mrs (First Letter Of Last Name) in order to avoid horrible manglings of their name. Half of your class decided to go with Mr. D. and I accept that. The other half at least tried to pronounce my name correctly. I think two of your 3rd graders got it correct.

I want to begin this letter by stating elementary school teachers should be nominated for sainthood. I am a man known for tremendous patience. I did computer tech support for over 5 years with frustrated computer users. I guided numerous people of limited experience through their problems. I've heard that patience is required for educators. I taught in Honors Society in high school, I've taught many people about computers, and I've attempted to teach others all throughout my life about things they need to know. I believe I am a good amateur educator. I reasoned I had enough patience for a class of 28 third graders. Oh how wrong I was. I'll get to that later.

The good news is I found the lesson plan you provided for me. The bad news is it wasn't with the other lesson plans so I found it right before the children left the school busses. Since I had to dash to the office in order to stop the frantic phone call about to be made to you I never had a chance to go over the lesson plan before my children arrived. Five spare minutes was all I needed to read your document completely. Five minutes to rummage around your room to see what materials and teacher manuals I needed to use. I didn't need to be an expert. I simply needed to know the basic schedule, the few tidbits on certain students you provided, and where certain key items such as band-aids, trash cans, and teacher manuals were located. I arrived early in order to get those five minutes. Why do I always lose time in the Main Office? At times I wonder if the meet and greet is overrated. Perhaps instead of being on-time I should arrive 15 or 20 minutes early just to get all the formalities out of the way. I NEVER GOT THE 5 MINUTES is what I'm saying.

I admit it: I have little experience with children. Now that many of my friends have spawned I'm around a fair number of toddlers. However, except for the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders I met last week, I'm a rather adult oriented person. Most adults can be reasoned with to an extent. I've discovered this tactic doesn't work on 8 year olds. I am not attempting to be their friend. I am their teacher; therefore, I should be higher up the food chain. When explaining myself I'm attempting to show them my decision isn't arbitrary and capricious nor designed to thwart their desires 'just because I can.' For teenagers that idea might work. For 3rd graders I may need a more iron hand in velvet glove approach. I don't know how much I taught the children today, but they certainly teach me!

I've discovered 8 year olds dislike change. If something disrupts their schedule I will hear about it! If I do something differently than you, their regular teacher, would do it I will hear about it. I attempted to teach them to be flexible and go with the flow. Would you be so kind as to reinforce that concept? Anyway the first disruption was the fire alarm. They never panicked. They knew exactly what to do. They lined up and calmly walked out into the hall. Since I had no idea where to go I simply followed them. The fire drill didn't last long, but it took forever to get the kids back into the classroom after the numerous bathroom breaks, replacement batteries for the hearing aid, and hall passes to see the nurse. Do these children have small bladders? Are children so overmedicated now that they are fragile as china? I can relate to the electronic device running out of juice.

I don't recall what I was attempting to do for the next half hour, but another teacher was kind enough to come in and start the mock ISTEP examination. I realize you didn't schedule the mock exam, but you've been gone since last Wednesday. The school wanted to conduct a mock examination today since the dreaded ISTEP exams start tomorrow. Annoying standardized exams that you don't want to take. I can relate to that. I wandered around the room helping the children follow the instructions the other teacher gave. Our students, those who could read a clock, noticed we were going into recess time. We, the teachers, explained the schedule was moved around to accommodate the ISTEP exams. Certain activities, like recess, were in the afternoon this week. At this point I'm recalling Dustin Hoffman in RainMan proclaiming, "Judge Wapner at 4'o clock." over and over again.

I tried to follow your lesson plan for the morning, but the fire drill and mock exam blew it to hell. It didn't help when I passed out the first worksheets about 'predicates' and couldn't find a corresponding lesson in the book. It also didn't help that I had no recollection what a predicate was. The last time I dealt with predicates was over 15 years ago, maybe 20. I asked them if they knew what a predicate was? I was hoping for one genius child and that didn't occur. I had to level with them: I had no idea what a predicate was so filling out the worksheet would be impossible. I've never received a grade lower than a B in English. I'm a published author concerning international law. I've written over 1,100 blog posts. I have no idea what a stinkin' predicate is.

In the interest of saving time I skipped your math lesson and the reading lesson. I went directly to handwriting the letter 'E' in cursive. Why does Little Jonny not want to write? He was willing to write capital 'E' and small 'e.' He refused to write an ending to the sentence. I kept telling him I didn't care what he wrote to end the sentence 'Each evening.' I provided Jonny with several examples of possible endings. Why can't Little Jonny write one of the endings I suggested? At this point I should have inquired as to what the disciplinary rules were, but I had 27 other rambunctious children to attend. I think at this point is when I took his little metal chain away from him. He really didn't like that.

I walked your children down to the lunchroom. Once again I simply followed them as I had no idea where it was. The principal noted how loud they were. No number of shushes, please be quiet, and this odd L hand signal everyone else seemed to use had any effect on their volume. I loved the teachers' lounge though. Sadly I've lost my voice by this point.

I don't see the point of getting the kids back to the classroom just to get them to Art a few minutes later. Maybe it is to give them a bathroom break yet again. Can someone design a school with bathrooms in the lunch room so these kids can go on their own? I liked your art teacher. She made the kids line up twice as they entered the art room too loudly. I warned her they were energetic today despite all my protests to be quiet in the halls. Art class is my prep period. I FINALLY got a chance to prep for a subject: SCIENCE! Would you believe I was a science nerd? A chance to teach "The Solar System" was heavenly. I had the Sun, all 9 planets (including the possible 10th planet recently discovered), various moons by name, and the Asteroid Belt drawn on the board. I didn't introduce the terms "light-minute" and "light-year" but I introduced the concepts to show the vast distances of space. The kids freaked when I wrote 400,000,000,000 on the board to explain how many stars were in our galaxy. I kept reinforcing previous concepts from the lesson. I hope I did Carl Sagan proud, though I resisted the urge to say BILLLL-UONS and BILLLL-UONS of stars. The first 20 minutes of Science were okay. The last 20 minutes they knew Recess was coming.

Speaking of Recess Little Jonny didn't make it. Detention for him. At this point I should mention B. Throughout class and recess I came to the conclusion B. seemed to have a crush on me. "Mr. D. can I help pass out papers?" "Mr. D. I like you. You're funny." "Mr. D. are you married?" "Mr. D. can you help me with my hair?" "Mr. D. how old are you?" "Mr. D. watch this (proceeds to do a somersault)!" A redheaded 3rd grade girl is apparently attracted to me. This proves that god has a sense of humor, and a warped one at that.

Can someone explain to me how a tiny 1st grade girl at recess can be so incredibly loud as she screams? I'm not talking about how painfully high a pitch her scream was, but outright volume. Someone turned the amp up to 11 on her.

The reading magazine proved so topical. It talked about hurricanes and the states that often bear the brunt of those storms. I tried to work in Hurricane Katrina as it was turning New Orleans into Atlantis today as far as I knew. Would someone please explain to me how to keep 20+ children quiet? I kept pointing out how loud they were. I referenced it back to the reading exercise on rules we just completed. Why aren't they listening to me?

I ignored your plan for 10 minutes of that read-aloud time. The children pulverized the room and I wanted them to clean it up. Paper, debris, and a box of 96 crayons was spread every where. I'm still uncertain how the instructions of, "Put all the books back where they belong and clean up your area" are so difficult for 8 year olds to understand. I tried to explain what I was expecting from them, but I had to break up a fight. I didn't care about the notes being passed around and little girls telling on them, but when I have two boys wrestling on the ground knocking over a chair I figure I should intervene. Mr. D's angry voice came out and dropped 3 octaves.

"I don't care who started this fight! I am ending it RIGHT NOW! I don't care what you said and what you threw. You WILL NOT BE SHOVING EACH OTHER AROUND! I want YOU to clean up the mess on this floor by your desk! Since you two are having problems being together I want YOU to grab your bookbag and stand by the pencil sharpener until the bell rings. You two will DO EXACTLY what I say RIGHT NOW!!! I see any more [managed to not say the word CRAP] stuff from either one of you I'm sending you both to the principal's office. I don't care that you'll miss the bus. You'll have to explain to your parents why they had to come to school to pick you up after the principal talks with you. I will eat your souls and steal your lunch money if either one of your does anything I don't like! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!!"

*the bell rings*

Class dismissed!

I attempted to clean up as much of the trash as possible. I put the Crayola 96 Box back together. I forgot the smell of crayons is so pleasant. I've left a note on your desk concerning the several discipline problems. I don't mind the opportunity to teach, but today I was a glorified baby sitter and a bad one at that. I know part of it was my fault. I believe I kept trying to apply adult tactics on children too young to be effective on. Yet part of it is theirs. They need to understand a guest teacher is still their teacher.

Welcome to 3rd grade. I don't know if I want to go back. I might give it another shot, but I need a few days to recover. Good luck getting them through a boring test. I'm sure it'll drive your patience.

Sincerely,
Mr. D.