Mrs. Miller gave the students several warns and enticing bribes to be on their best behavior tomorrow morning. She would be gone the whole day tomorrow but she would still be in the building, in a series of long meetings.
Starting off Monday morning with their usual meeting sitting Indian style in a circle (or what politically correct teachers today refer to as “criss cross apple sauce”) sharing what they did this past weekend.
“On Friday night, I went to a birthday party. Then I had a dance recital and then I went to another birthday party.”
“I had a baseball game. Then I went to my dad' s house and we went to Wisconsin Dells. Then we came home and watched a movie at the mall.”
“I went to the playground with some friends and we had a basketball game. Then on Saturday I went to the gym with my dad and we went swimming. Then I visited my cousin's farm and went horseback riding.”
After each kid shared what busy lives they have (and the teacher vaguely recalling that she spent most of her childhood weekend watching cartoons), she prepped them for a substitute (or what she referred to as a, “guest teacher”).
After gaining their eye contact and attention, she gave them a small speech about giving the guest teacher more respect than they give her. She went on for another minute (the attention span of small children is infamously short), clapped her hands together and ended with, “I'm sure you all will be just wonderful for Mr. Green!”
This broke their focus-they all burst out with billowing laughs and commentary that's as clever as the jokes printed on a taffy wrapper.
“Mr. Green! I wonder if he's related to Mrs.Purple!”
“Mr. Green! I bet he's a frog!”
“Or an alien!
Mr. Green was the talk of the playground. “Hey, we get a frog for a teacher tomorrow!” the class would chirp to the other kids.The next day the children came into the classroom, after pulling off rain boots and jackets and found a plump little man up at the white board, writing, “Mr. Green” with a black dry erase marker. As soon each kid entered the classroom, they fell silent.
A green hand was moving across the board, writing the list of daily assignments, copied from a note left by Mrs. Miller. Mr. Green went back and underlined his name as the bell rang. As if the class could forget.
“My name is Mr. Green and I will be filling in for Mrs. Miller today. I understand that you are reviewing shapes.”
He went to the overhead projector and took out a manila envelope of colored transparency pieces of shapes. Yellow squares, purple circles, red triangles, and blue trapezoids came tumbling out. Mr. Green sorted them out on the overhead, so the pieces wouldn't overlap each other.
The class volunteered their answers freely without having Mr. Green call on them until there was just one last shape remaining that hadn't been identified.
“Which color is the octagon,” he asked. No shouting out of answers, hands remained unseen from the substitutes view. Hannah's head was itchy but she feared that Mr. Green may mistake her scratching hand for a volunteering one.
Mr. Green peered over her desk to view her stickered name tag, “Hannah, what do you think?”
“I don't know,” she said.
“We just finished discussing this. Who wants to help out Hannah? How about Jake?”
“Um...the yellow one?” answered Jake.
“Nope, let's see, who I haven't heard from yet today,” Mr. Green looked around the sea of students. The ones who had been called on earlier that day sat still but confident in their chairs. Those who have yet to be called on sat still but only because they had a clinging hope that they blended into the background and would remain unseen.
“How about...Zachary?”
The students looked at each other. Of all the names Mr. Green could have chosen, he picked out Zachary. Zachary who had more in door recesses then the entire grade have accumulated thus far into the year. Zachary who had more than enough notes sent home to fill a composition notebook. Mr. Green walked in front of Zac's desk.
“You like to be called Zac, right?” asked Mr. Green.
“Yes,” politely answered Zac.
“Take a look at these two shapes,” Mr. Green held up a yellow plastic circle and a green square.
“To review, a polygon needs to have at least three sides. Which color is the octagon?”
There was no backing out of this one, every student stared in unblinking anticipation.
Zac took a long pause before finally saying, “Green.”
Mr. Green looked at Zachary for an uncomfortable moment until the word “Great!” slipped out from beneath his curled lips and then continued on with the lesson. A collective sigh fell over the classroom.
Name: Mrs. Miller's 3rd grade class.
Location: Maple Grove
Think: Mr. Green is green.
Thing: Mr. Green's skin is a light green hue.
Status: Fixed Pending As Is
Comments: Color faded as soon as the class left after the final bell. Reminded me of a few previous clients with similar cases, Georgina Brown, David White, and Jackie Black.