Flash Entries

The Absolute Worst Teacher (ID # 1706971)

The Absolute Worst Teacher


Tears flowed down Elaine’s face. Her shirt was spotted from the drips as the flood gates once opened, weren’t going to be shut until it had all gotten out of her system. “I’ve wasted my whole life….” she blubbered through the sobs that racked her body. She’d never lost control like this. That was an additional blow to her fragile ego.

Her mentor sat and stared at Elaine. Christine was a long time veteran assigned to help ease Elaine into her new professional career. She knew something was up earlier when she saw Elaine in the cafeteria with her students. She looked like a deer in the headlights, frightened almost, but the kids were on their very best behavior and once she sat down with her class she appeared to calm down. So Christine decided to talk to Elaine after all of the kids had left for the day.

Christine’s class followed Elaine’s class out to the bus lot for afternoon dismissal. When Christine saw Elaine, she had that same look in her eyes. Christine just observed Elaine as she gave each child a pat on the back and wished them a good evening before they boarded their proper bus. She realized that was a genuine emotion, so the kids weren’t the problem. It was something else, but what?

Christine continued to follow Elaine down to the end of the bus lot. Elaine stopped and looked down to the end of the road, as if she was willing the late buses to materialize. She couldn’t hear them coming, so the rest of the children would have to go to the auditorium to wait for their bus to arrive.

Christine’s class continued to follow Elaine’s to the auditorium, she kept observing, looking for clues to help her assist her mentee. Each yard closer, Elaine grew more fidgety, nervous; by the time she reached the door Christine thought Elaine would jump right out of her skin. Christine looked past the line of kids to see who was standing at the door letting them in. She realized that the principal and the assistant principal were both there and right beyond them was someone else standing in the shadows. “Uh-oh” she thought when the face came into view, “The superintendent is here.” The pieces of the puzzle were starting to take shape and before Elaine reached the door, Christine knew she had to whisk her away. “Elaine,” Christine called as soon as she was sure that Elaine was within the bigwig’s earshot, “Don’t forget, I have the materials you needed for tomorrow. Can you come get them right now?”

Elaine’s face said it all, thankfulness, relief, a slight glimmer of hope in her eyes. “Oh, that’s right, I was about to forget. Thank you so much, Christine for reminding me. I’ll go to your room right now. Kids, you go on in, I’ll see you in the morning… maybe.”

Christine had never seen anyone tuck tail and walk away so fast. She made sure the students left from both classes were in their appropriate seats and headed for her room. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

When she walked in Elaine was in the back corner of the room, slumped over in the chair. Her face was hidden in her hands and her body quaking from the harshness of her sobs. Christine had never seen anyone in so much pain. Quietly she put the lock on the door and closed it, turned off the lights so that no one would come in. She gently placed her hand on her shoulder. Elaine hadn’t even heard her come in. The soft touch, while meant to comfort made her gasp and jump.

“OK Elaine. What happened?”

The sobs kept coming. “This is so wrong.”

Christine sat beside Elaine with her arm protectively wrapped around her shoulder, “Well then, we’ll have to fix it. But honey, you have to give me a little more to go on.”

The sobs started to slow, the sniffles began to take over, “You saw who was here today.”

“Yes, and?”

“He came to my room. They all came to my room.” Elaine took the Kleenex Christine was handing her, and blew her nose, and let out a long defeated sigh.

“OK, and what did the bully, oh, whoops, the superintendent tell you?”

Elaine buried her head again, beginning to cry even harder as she relived the moment in her mind. The harsh words from the superintendent, rolled out between the sobs. “He told me I was the worst new hire he had ever seen, in front of my kids. He was yelling across the room all of my kids heard him say how awful I was.”

“You remember Marvin and how impulsive he is, well that made him mad, so he got up, ran across the room and kicked him. Then, oh my, it got even worse.” Violent sobs shook her, while Christine tried to calm her down; Elaine kept reliving the morning in her mind. “Marvin’s actions set off a chain of totally unruly behavior. Dyango decided to run around the room, then when that wasn’t enough he started jumping from chair to chair. Carly was so scared when the superintendent started yelling and Marvin kicked him, she peed in her pants. Raven noticed the ever growing puddle under her chair, and started making fun of Carly.”

“ Then he started yelling at me again about my classroom management, the lack of discipline, not following the standard operating procedures, and something about my resignation letter needed to be tendered immediately. Then Hallie went and got in his face. She put her hands on her hips and stomped across the room. I’d never seen her so angry looking. She looked him in the eye, poked her finger in his gut, and asked him ‘Who the hell did you think you are to come in here and interrupt our work?’ I wanted to die, I wanted to clap. Mainly, I wanted an adult to stand up for me. The principal just stood there and said nothing. The assistant principal said nothing. The superintendent just got redder and redder. I don’t think he could believe a seven year old would talk to him like that.”

Christine smiled, “I always thought your little Hallie was a spit-fire, and I’m glad to see Marvin coming to your rescue, not appropriately, but he tried in the only way he knew how. But, Elaine, all of that is after the fact. What started his tirade?”

Elaine took a deep breath, “You know how we have to have your day planned out, to the minute. Our plans have to be aligned to the course of study, the objectives, assignments and all have to be documented and ready by the door. On the board we have to have the specific goal, objective number, assignments all listed on the board with the time chart. You know, everyone on the grade level in the whole system is supposed to be on the same page, the same lesson, the same assignment, all in the name of equity.”

“Yeah, I know, but we both know that isn’t realistic.”

“Well, I wasn’t doing what my plan said at that specific time. I wasn’t lecturing about why we have seasons. I wasn’t asking the scripted questions. I wasn’t making the children sit like statues in their desks taking notes on an abstract concept. I wasn’t following the pre-lesson assessment so I wasn’t following the post lesson assessment. I wasn’t doing one damned thing on that asinine evaluation form that he was about to choke on.”

Christine smiled when she saw a little spark of Elaine’s true personality. She thought, “Now we’re getting to the real problem.”

“I thought he would leave, but he stayed. They all stayed. They sat back there taking notes, getting redder and redder with each word out of my mouth. I guess they’d been in there about an hour or so, when he threw his pad on the ground and shouted at the top of his lungs, that I was an incompetent boob and his tirade went on and on. I was terrified, for me, for my kids.”

“Nobody came to my rescue. The principal and his assistant both looked like bobble head dolls, yes-men agreeing with everything he said.”

Elaine’s sobs had quieted somewhat, getting it off of her chest had helped. She sighed and looked at Christine. “What do I do now? He wants my resignation today.”

Christine started to respond when they heard footsteps in the hallway. Elaine started jittering, that panicked look returned to her eyes. Christine touched her arm and shushed her. “They don’t know we’re still here. Let them pass.”

The group continued down the hall straight to Elaine’s room. They banged on her door and discussed the possibility of her leaving campus already, they were all so certain that her resignation letter would be on her desk.

Christine had had enough of their shenanigans. “You stay here, don’t make any noise. They won’t know you’re here.” She left Elaine huddled in the corner. Christine’s mother hen instinct was in full flair. She swung open her door and closed it behind her. She practically charged down the hall, maybe it was her Taurus instinct instead of mother hen. Could be she was channeling her favorite DI, her father.

She had her best ‘I AM in charge look’ on her face. She had that experienced teacher eye thing that kids shriveled at going on too. Her pointer finger was ready to wag. She stopped six inches from the superintendent’s face. She glared at him, her nostrils flared, her brow furrowed and he tried to back up. Each step he took back, she took one forward.

“Let me tell you one thing, Bucko. I grew up with you, went to college with you. I know every skeleton that you think you have hidden in your closet. I knew you when you couldn’t even think about handling a room full of kids much less motivate them to want to learn. Did you think I wanted to team teach with you? Hell no, but Mr. Robinson knew you couldn’t do it after your first day. Do you know how many calls he got from parents with crying kids that never wanted to come back to school? I do! Ten, the very first day, you only had fifteen kids! So being your ‘friend’ I got stuck cleaning up your messes. You never could teach, if it wasn’t in the textbook it wasn’t learning as far as you were concerned. I carried your class. I made sure you passed your administration classes so you’d get your sorry ass out of the classroom and hopefully do less damage to children. I can’t believe you have the balls to stand here and call someone that is trying to do it right the worst new teacher that you’ve ever hired? How dare you!”

The principal stood ashen, aghast that someone would talk to the superintendent that way. The assistant principal was enjoying the scene a little too much. Elaine had heard the commotion and was peeking out the window of Christine’s room. Her deer in head lights look replaced with an honest, oh my God look.

Christine turned toward her classroom and in her best playground voice, she didn’t want anyone on the hall to miss this, “This pile of tyrannical crap that you are all terrified of, couldn’t teach a class of six year olds. I was his neighbor growing up. He couldn’t pass his basic math course and he’s the one figuring out our statistics. Ha! I helped him with his papers in college. Our first jobs were in classes side by side in a pod. He didn’t have the patience, tolerance or skills to work with his kids then, and he sure as hell doesn’t know what makes a good teacher now.”

She turned back to face her boss, poked her finger into his chest with each word, “You get your sorry ass down that hall and you apologize to Elaine. Right now! Do you hear me?”

The superintendent was taken aback. He couldn’t believe anyone would talk to him like that, bring up his past like that, and embarrass him like that, in front of his subordinates. He scowled at Christine. “You think you know so much?”

“I know you.” She paused just for effect. “You know it for a fact; I haven’t said one thing that was untrue. You have a choice to make. You go right now, make this right and change your policies, or Bucko, you’ll be seeing a lot of me. I’ll be calling some of my parents. I have some that just happen to run the local television news department and two that work at the Observer, not to mention the three parents that are lawyers. I’m sure they’ll be interested in your behavior today and your treatment of a ‘new hire’.”

Christine took a half a step back. Her tone changed and was dripping with honey when she said, “Oh, please tell Sarah I said hi, I’ll call her next week. I am very sure you’ll have everything well underway by then, now won’t you?”

“Now, I think it’s time you made that apology, don’t you?” Christine’s eyebrow raised, her teacher eye was drilling a hole in him and he was starting to squirm under her scrutiny.

He didn’t say one word to Christine, or his henchmen. He just slunk his way back down the hall toward the office. He slowed briefly at Christine’s door. Elaine cracked open the door, but stood behind it for protection. Barely audible and mumbled through clenched jaws, he said, “Sorry, don’t write the letter,” and kept on walking straight out to his car.

Christine crossed her arms, looked at both of her immediate supervisors, “I know your secrets too, so don’t you get any bright ideas.” She boldly walked back to her room and shrugged her shoulders as she shut the door, “There, I told you, we’d get it fixed. Didn’t I,” like nothing at all had happened.