WHY I TEACH-Part 6: The First Day of School

6:00 a.m. Who goes to school at 6:00 a.m. on the first day of school? Every teacher who spent the previous few days not sleeping, that’s who.

I turned right toward 107B and noticed something shining on the wall - a light switch. I flicked it up and a row of overhanging shop lights lit up the dark hallway. I brushed the tears from my eyes and whispered, “Thank you, Atticus.”

I went into my office, or rather into the large windowless closet which contained my desk, and sat down. I looked into my classroom through the open door and felt isolated. I pushed the heavy antique metal post-1980s desk forward. The legs screeched in rebellion on the freshly polished floor.

I sat back down and examined the modified shortened schedule for the day:

8:00-8:15 homeroom

8:25-8:55 1st period Computer Repair

9:05-9:35 2nd period Coding

9:45-10:15 3rd period Planning or Subbing

10:25-10:55 4th period Computer Networking

11:15-12:15 Lunch

12:25-1:25 Pep Rally/Activities Fair

1:30 Dismissal to busses

I had a Master’s Degree in Business Education, which apparently qualified me to teach computer-based subject matter. I’d never so much as even cracked the case or tower, as they are apparently called, of a computer, but still, I was qualified. I’d taken one entry-level course on computer networking while getting my Bachelor’s Degree in Business and I hadn’t understood a word of what I learned.

When I’d applied for the job, they didn’t mention the courses I’d be teaching. As a teacher, fresh out of college and student teaching, I hadn’t known to even ask.

Mr. 107A taught the classes I wanted to teach: Computer Applications, Website Design, and Multimedia Production. Me: I had a full schedule of courses I knew nothing about, with no textbooks and a little more than two hours before the kids arrived.

“Knock, knock,” a voice called out. “You in there?”

I jumped up and stuck my head out of my office door. “Mr. B! You’re here early.”

“That I am,” Mr. B. replied with a smile. “You like being in there?” He motioned to the office closet.

“I’d rather not be stuck in there,” I said. “Hey, do you want to help me move the desk into my classroom?”

“Yes, ma’am! You think you’re strong enough to lift it?”

It took some doing, lots of calling out PIVOT! PIVOT! but eventually, we got the desk moved into my classroom.

“I’m just around the corner in 112,” Mr. B. said. “If you need anything, just holler.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t forget to check the sub list and have a good first day!”

“Subbing? Today?” I asked. “It’s the first day of school, why would anyone be out?”

Mr. B. laughed, waved, and walked down the hallway and out of my classroom.

I went to the front office and stared at the sub list. Seventeen teachers were out. 17. On the first day of school and I was subbing. On the first freaking day of school.

Back in my classroom, I checked my emails and organized my desk. Class schedules lay neatly alphabetized on the first table. The clock on the wall ticked, ticked, ticked.

At 7:04, a tall lanky young man emerged from the hallway. “107B?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes!” I jumped up and walked over to him. “Welcome! Find your schedule and have a seat.”

He glanced at the schedules, picked his up, walked to a seat on the back row of tables, sloshed into it, put his head down, and closed his eyes.

I felt like I should dim the lights or offer him a pillow and blanket, but since I didn’t have any way to dim the lights or a pillow, I made a mental note to buy a couple of lamps, so I could turn off the overhead fluorescent lights, and blankets.

One by one, my band of 24 homeroom students emerged through the hallway. No longer the top of the food chain in middle school, they had become the bottom feeders. A solemn group of bedraggled, hungry, forgetful youth.

“Do you have any food?” a scrawny pimple plagued young man asked. I didn’t.

“Um.” A shy young woman in a camo t-shirt and blue jeans came up to my desk. “I think I started my period, do you have anything?” I didn’t. I’d left my purse in my car. I found a quarter in the back of one of my desk drawers and handed it to her. Hopefully, the vending machines in the bathrooms were stocked.

I added to my mental list: granola bars, cheese crackers, pencils, tampons, and pads. Maybe that’s why Mr. Joseph had spent so much money on snack foods.

Twenty-four freshmen sat before me. For the next four years, they would come to me for 15 minutes every morning. My task was to get to know them, connect and support them, in only 15 minutes a day. I hadn’t even learned their names in the first 15 minutes, yet I was to be their guide, mentor, teacher, and friend...