It is Hat Day. The grade 4-6s are taking part in the way creative kids do.  They are wearing baseball caps, summer hats and I notice one with a winter tuque, one with a horse riding helmet, one with a clown hat. They have headbands, flowers in their hair and yes, some fascinators.

I am teaching phys ed all day in a French immersion elementary and all students are going to play ringette in the gym.  The teacher tells me “They know what to do”, which is sometimes a warning signal for subs because it may mean the kids will manipulate their freedom if you don’t know what they are to do.  Anyway I am a bit wary but need not have been. They do in fact know what team they are on, comply with my directions of who plays who today, and they set up the equipment and put on their pinnies fast. In four corners a kid lies flat on the stomach while a friend laces them into the cumbersome goalie leggings and it’s quite cute to see the process.  They start to play, they know the rules, the game proceeds amazingly well. When a point is made someone unasked goes to put the point up on the scoreboard. When there is a disagreement about who gets the puck, the kids also have been taught a solution. The two disputers play the hand game of ‘rocher, papier, ciseaux” rock  paper scissors- and resolve it.  I am kind of stunned at the lack of whining about things.  The teacher told me that I should allow 2 minutes at the end of the class for them to take off the pinnies and return all the equipment, line up and get ready to leave. Two minutes, I think?  I know kids and I give them five minutes, just in case.  They are done in two.  Military precision.  I find out this teacher is retiring this year.  Our loss for sure.

The kids are to practise a song the school wrote about prairie sky and to help, they are accompanied by a taped guitar version with the notes in very low key.  Of the 300 or so kids there, nearly nobody can sing that low and the teachers are pretty shocked and sad. They don’t know how to adjust.  Back in the classroom I ask who in the class is a good singer. Everybody points to Davey.  I ask him to demonstrate and he does sing the song, perfectly, on key.  We then all sing along with him as best we can and I suggest to the principal for the show to find Davey.

Experienced elementary teachers have lots of tricks. I notice one gives the kids what she calls a ‘wiggle break’. They get up and some do jumping jacks

The kids have been asked to write legends about trees after we discussed their root systems. One creates a story where the trees are growing upside down and the heads of the trees are deep underground. Another has a character who  imitates a tree, stands on his head for two days, loses 40 pounds and then feels better.

People say that kids should be protected from stories about violence and yet I am surprised sometimes at stories I am assigned to read. In a Paul Bunyan story a dog runs so fast it hits a tree and the dog splits in half. Paul Bunyan glues it back together.

A grade 3 boy tells me another boy said a swear word. I call the offender up and ask if that is true and he looks embarrassed, saying “I was speaking my secret language”

The instructions the teachers leave are sometimes incomplete or confusing to me. “Have the students put the posters on the wall near the hooks” What hooks? Is it the wall by the venetian blind hooks, the wall by the notice board hooks or the wall by the coat hooks? The other teachers says it is likely the last one.   Other instructions:
_Do adding and subtracting with dices

-We have just begun to explore carriing over and borrowing

I am to read the grade 3s a story about a gypsy girl who envies a princess and who for a time gets to relocate to a castle. I ask the kids if they have ever been jealous of someone else.  There in my adult point of view I am assuming they’ll think about nicer clothes, bigger house, fancier holidays. I’m wrong. Hands shoot up about what experiences they have had but they envy someone who has more candy, someone who got invited to a birthday party when they didn’t, someone who has a dog, someone who has a bird, someone who had better lunches.

A grade 3 girl comes up at the start of the day in a school I sometimes sub at. She hugs me! She says ‘We’ve missed you” and I am touched.  She calls me “Mrs. Simpson’ though, which is not my name. Ah well.

A grade one girl asks me my age as we enter class at the start of the day. I am taken aback and tell her that’s a personal question. She tells me she is 6 and was just wondering how old I am. I tell her I’m 62, but that it’s a secret. I tell her that I like people to say I’m 21.  She smiles. At noon she comes up to me and whispers, ” I told my friends you’re 21”

I am trying to get the grade 5-6 kids to take part in a discussion.  It is happy banter but one or two are just sitting there. A boy looks over at another and says “You know I don’t like it when you don’t play the family game”

At the end of the day a grade one child comes over to me and out of the blue says “Thank you’.  I am a little surprised and ask “For what?”  She says after a pause, a big exuberant” For everything!”

?

On the wall at the start of the year are papers telling parents’  hopes for the year for their child. It’s a touching thing  to ask of parents I guess and yet I see some interesting comments about their dreams

-I hope he continues doing his best to reach goals while showing a positive attitude

-I hope he continues to work hard with his writing and doesn’t give up

-I believe he can do anything he sets his mind to

-We expect her to be kind and inclusive to her classmates

-Our hope is she would not fall into a clique mentality

-We would like her to learn how to think before asking or answering.

-We hope that he experiences more joy than sorrow

-We hope he will acheive grade level and have a joyious year and be wel behaved (sic)

-I want him to grow up learning high ethics and high moral values

-He should be an exmpleary(word crossed out ) excellent citizen

-I hope for her to break away from her shyness and succeed at everything she tries

-I hope he will be a famous hockey player and successful mechanical engineer

-We want her to make lots of friends

The kids have been making paper chains in their downtime.  I have an idea of us surprising the teacher and all contributing to line the room with the chain when she returns. They all pitch in once their other work is done, over recess I cut more paper, over lunch I help assembly more, some kids stay back to get it done and by the end of the day it is done.  The chain goes all around the room.

How weird would it be if I told the classroom teacher all my memories of the room she is now teaching in?  I won’t but it kind of haunts me. The room that has been the kindergarten room, the  music room, the storage room? The large open area that has been three classes of grade 4, two classes of grade 5, a large music room, a science experiment room.  I’m in some altered reality.

In phys ed the kids hand me their watches, eyeglasses, rings to guard or ‘hold’.  I am touched by their immediate trust.

I am teaching a rather quiet French immersion junior high series of math classes. These are smart kids and for the most part are given just worksheets to do.  They are however well trained. As they exit the class several look back at me and say “Merci Madame”.  I don’t know why that always gets to me.  There is no regular classroom teacher to make them say it and nobody there from the admin to see that they did.  Were they told to thank the subs? Maybe.  I assume yes.  But they did and to me that shows an attitude that bodes well for their futures.  It is important to express respect, whether they feel it or not even.  It sees me as valuable and some days I need that.

I am to show a movie and the VCR is not working. Every time I put it in there is a horrible hum. A grade 3 boy moves around a few plugs and gets it to work.

Going to different schools each day and sometimes two a day is exhausting.  One day as I am driving up a very familiar hill I wonder for a split second where on earth I am supposed to be going right now? Ah yes.  But maybe I should be wearing a sign “If Lost, please return to….”

Many schools ask for parent volunteers and in September get several who generally for one reason or another drop out by December. I am however at a school that for some reason retains its volunteers and has a tradition of doing so, for years.  It is a bilingual school in the northwest and I am there when the school is planning its tea to thank the volunteers.  I ask around to find out what they do so our thanks can be more specific. It turns out the school has 250 volunteers and I know this is so for I see their name tags in the hallway.  What do they do? They help with field trips, help in the cafeteria, read to kids, laminate posters, help little kids get dressed, serve at lunch, plan pizza and special lunch days,  help with the ski trip, swimming, art projects, volunteer with the gardening.  They help with the family dance, the September breakfast, the sandwiches for kids who forgot their lunch, the food shopping. They fold food boxes, serve treat of the month and help with recycling.  What makes this work? I have no idea.

I am in a grade one class on a winter day. The class has 18students regularly but 7 are away and one is on holiday.  The tissue boxes are very active and there is coughing.

I am to teach phys ed to the grade 5s and the teacher left a note to let the kids choose the game. I ask for suggestions. Tag. Benchball. But then one suggests “Murder’ and well, this may not be quite allowed. This turns out however to be a game where you shake hands innocently but one unknown assailant adds a special grip and then the victim has to drop down. Others then try to identify who was the murderer.  Hmm. Is this a good game? The kids enjoy it.

I am to have the grade 6s write legends.  I suggest a few starter ideas of weird reasons birds fly or squirrels collect nuts and the kids laugh and add a few thoughts. One student walks in late and someone looks up at him and says what is music to my ears to the newcomer. “We’re having fun”.

The teacher I am subbing for is in the Boston marathon. He runs the 42 k race this year for the second time and is apparently a very good runner.  I am excited about looking him up on the Internet for it is possible to track any one of the thousands of runners. At the last class of the morning I check and discover he is within minutes of the finish line so we are actually there to register when he clocks in at 3 hours and 17 minutes.  I decide to have all classes write a little note for a big trifold to welcome him back and congratulate him. The kids’ notes are very sweet, encouraging, proud. I am struck however by the note of two grade 8 girls who giggle as they write it” Congratulations on winning the Boston Marathon. Oh wait. You didn’t win. We are so embarrassed”.    I think that note is my favorite.

I am subbing for a young male teacher in an elementary school.  I am always fascinated to see how men handle the role that is nowadays often a women’s profession at that level. I kind of admire how they do it. This one has photos on the bookcase of himself, two pictures of his dogs and one of him on his motorcycle.  It always interests me how some teachers show the kids they are real people with a life.  Anyway I mention the dogs to one of the students and several nod and say with a smile that one time on an exam the teacher awarded bonus points if you could name his dogs.

I am hired to teach phys ed for two classes.  The regular teacher is tall, very athletic and I notice that in seconds she has told the kids things I never knew. She shows them how to hold a basketball with lines across not down, and how to spin it and how to use the right hand not the left and she demonstrates and lands every basket she tries.  Art.  I had a similar ‘awe’ experience watching another phys ed teacher with little kids showing them how to sit on the floor with ‘pizza legs’ – legs apart. I use the expression ever since and kids understand it easily.

In this school is a mural that extends about 40 feet and about 8 feet tall. It was done by 9 parent volunteers under direction from some teachers too, in 1980-81 and it is a tribute to childhood. It is amazing, featuring brightly colored scenes form nearly all fairy tales I ever heard of and many I did not. Walking along I recognize Black Beauty, Mary Poppins, Miss Piggy, Anne of Green Gables, the Cat in the Hat, Lassie, Big Bird, Wilbur, Berenstain Bears, the Little Engine that could, Chitty Chitty  Bang Bang, Casper, Smurfs, Pinocchio, Bert and Ernie, Tigger, Snow White, Robin Hod, Winnie the Pooh, Little Bo Peep, Snoopy. Linus, Charlie Brown, Bambi, Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Pippi Longstocking, Clifford the red dog,.   The secretary, when asked, knows little about the mural but its legacy is still here for sure.  I am stunned by the vision of those who created all these original non-stock drawings over 30 years ago. What a gift.

A grade two girl goes to her backpack and shows me a poem someone wrote for her . It is a tribute.  I suspect her mother wrote the poem. It talks about the morning of the birth and the joy of holding the child’s hand, then reflects on the miracle of life, the preciousness of moments together. It concludes “I am father”.

I do a quick glance at the classroom each time when I leave to make sure no child was left behind. This is usually a ridiculous thing to do really for they are often keen to leave to go with us to gym, library, music, lunch, recess or at the end of the day. However one day my quick glance paid off. A child was indeed hiding back there in the cloakroom, wrapped in a coat and trying to avoid going to gym class as a joke.

This is an old school and the ceiling is made of separate tiles. The teacher has apparently though over the years made it an art project to have each year’s class sign their names on a tile.  It is very cute. The ceiling now has logos, names, drawings, of kids from years and years and there are only a few empty tiles left of the about 80 available.

I am teaching grade 2-3 and one of the students looks at my shoes and giggles. I have put on two black shoes this morning, hours earlier, but from different pairs.

I am teaching grade 2-3 phys ed and we have a few minutes to spare. I ask if anyone would like to show us a trick.  Suddenly there are cartwheels, bridges, handstands and I am amazed. Also a bit worried since we don’t have mats so I maybe should not ask this again but these kids are very good.

I am at a grade 5 class in a well-to-do district and a boy comes over to me saying he recognizes me from his old school where I subbed two years ago and last year. He seems relieved to see a familiar face.  I ask how he likes his new school and he says he likes it. I ask if he moved to a new house too and he said yes that the landlord was not good at the last one. He said they lived in a basement suite with only two small windows that would not open so he likes his new place better. I felt privilege to be for him a little bridge.

A retired geologist who is about 85 years old volunteers in two elementary schools regularly, reading to kids two days a week. He is a wobbly little man with a big smile and everybody’s grandpa.

I am in a grade 1-2 class doing computer work and they ask me variously to unfreeze a screen, to unblock a site so they can access it, to log in when they can’t.  They look at me as if I am knowledgeable and I do try to help. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Often I get another student to help them if I can’t.

I am at a school where a few parents actually come to the school every day and sit and eat with their kids. They bring the lunch and there is a special area in the inner courtyard they use. The school dubs them the ‘lunch bunch’.

This is a scent-free school yet I notice a very heavy smell of body odor near some teens.

I hear in discussions interesting other cultural views- like that in dreams you get visions of the future.  A grade 6 immigrant says it was nice to sit in her new class and not have to worry about finding cooties on the chair.

A teacher in this grade 6 has her class make crafts for Africa and quilts for the homeless shelter.  She and the class even toured the new shelter where people graduate from a mass dorm to a separate room with a bed and a shared kitchen. She has now taught about 300 kids over ten years, this community-serving value.

This teacher has on the wall a display area set aside for something from each of her students. They put up their best recent work and there are 24 separate mural areas.

As usual before a test, I tell kids there is no talking allowed and if they are talking I will take their paper away. I give them all the rules and then suitably intimidated usually, the kids are silent and get to work. In one class though a little girl looked a little more scared than usual and raised her hand to tell me that sometimes when she’s reading she mouths words and hopes that’s OK.

We are not allowed to teach religion in the schools.  I notice however that at the native school all classes sit in a circle at the start of each day and do a smudge ceremony.  A bowl with sweetgrass on fire and smoking lightly is passed in silence and a poem is recited.  I just love the poem.
O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me. I come before you one of your children. I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may know the things you have taught my people, the lesson you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength not to be superior to my brothers but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself. Make me ever ready to come to you, with clean hands and straight eyes so when life fades as a fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.- It is a poem by Yellow Hawk, a Sioux chief.

I have been so lucky to teach.  It is exhausting, and I have to be at the top of my game. There are 30 active minds, 30 pairs of piercing eyes in front of me with the world’s fastest reaction time and a keen sense of mischief.  They are  the future. 

I see them passing in front of me and then going on ahead of me.  I thank whatever powers may be that I got to be part of their journey.