“Who’s the toughest kid in this class?” I ask the team.
“MAX,” all four of them yell.
I am immediately drawn to all of them. Individually, they could not be more different.
Tamika, a Type A mother-hen with a loud, booming laugh, is warm and seems to have high expectations for her teammates and students.
Mia, reserved and sweet and slightly neurotic, speaks quietly with a slight Midwestern accent.
Chaya has a friendly smile, personable, and in a heavy, lilting Brooklyn accent, talks to me like an old friend, like we’ve known each other our whole lives.
Emmanuel, with his deeply sarcastic voice, at odds with the light and breezy way he holds himself, tells me matter-of-factly, “I’m kind, but not nice.”
Regardless of all the personalities in the room, the third grade team is Tight, an endearing melting pot of a family. They are supportive of one another, finish each other sentences, and seem to operate like a well-oiled machine.
“How do you like the leadership here?” I ask them tentatively. Because at the end of the day, this is what matters, and I should triple check that I don’t leave one deranged administration for another.
“They’re amazing,” Tamika offers.
Everyone nods. That settles that, I suppose?
“Can you tell me more?” Ipress.
“Oliver and Lina both genuinely care about the kids. Every choice they make is for them,” Mia clarifies.
“They care for the kidsandthe staff. They don’t flaunt their power or anything. Everything around here is based on collaborative leadership. They take teachers and our opinions seriously.”
“But they’re also great coaches. They’ve made us all better teachers.”
“Also, one of them wears the hell out of a suit. Thursday professional development days are not a hardship,” Emmanuel adds on. He is fanning himself. Everyone else agrees wholeheartedly.
“Shalom,” he says.
“Werk,” says Chaya.
We are all laughing when Lina opens the door to the classroom, smiling when she sees us all getting along. “Well, this looks like a party,” she says, stepping in. I am fully grinning when she turns to me. “Everything going okay? You ready for your demo lesson?”
“Absolutely,” I say. After the tour and meeting the team, I am confident that this is my new home.You are a great teacher. You will be an asset to this community. You will crush this demo lesson.
“All right everyone, thenvamos,” says Lina. She walks out of the classroom. I pick up my backpack (“Get that thing away from me, Garbage Juice,” Emmanuel tells me). Mia helps Chaya up out of her seat, Emmanuel ready to support behind her. All of us falling into line behind Lina like a bunch of baby ducklings, walking to the pond.
THREE
Oliver
I walk into my office,but Superintendent Daniels is nowhere to be found. I radio Ms. Madge on the walkie-talkie. “Have you seen the supe?” I ask her.
“Bathroom,” she responds, her voice tinny over the contraption.
Sighing, I sit at my desk, looking for something to organize, a pen to put away, a stack of papers to file, but it’s orderly, immaculate. I sip my now lukewarm coffee, thinking.
We are only three weeks into September, and the situation has devolved into chaos. We’ve been searching for a teacher for 302 this entire time, the previous year’s teacher surprising us all when she didn’t come back after the summer. We must have interviewed ten teachers so far, each one of them absolute duds—crazy, strange, apathetic, just there to collect a paycheck. One had a criminal record. Another had half the words on his lesson plan spelled incorrectly.
Meanwhile, the class has crumbled completely, a new substitute teacher assigned to our school each day. Today’s substitute teacher was fresh out of college, green as grass, at twenty-one years old. The students, like sharks sensingwounded prey, have taken full advantage. My inbox was constantly pinging with angry emails from unhappy parents.
We’re approaching desperation.
However, there’s no way in hell that this Georgia Baker would be able to handle this class. The level of organization and skill a teacher would need to handle that chaos? There’s no way the sloppy, beautiful garbage woman would be the right fit, but I figured I would let Lina have this. Every moment is a teachable moment, and this way, I can coach her through running effective interviews. The importance of first impressions. I want to get back up there to coach her through what to look out for in a demo lesson?—
