“Like the bird?” he asked, settling in beside me.
“Exactly like the bird,” I said. “In fact, my last name is Bird, and I have a twin sister named Robin.”
“My name’s Wabby, which is short for my Ayaska name that outsiders and tourists can never pronounce. My uncles are identical twins, too. Nobody can ever tell them apart, not even my mom and grandparents.”
“Well, Robin and I are fraternal twins,” I let him know. “So it’s easy to tell us apart. She’s taller than me and a little lighter.”
Also much thinner, but I didn’t like to make body observations to kids at an impressionable age.
“Like womb twins!” the boy said brightly.
I wasn’t sure what he meant since all twins came from the womb. But at Barrington Prep, we were under strict orders never to reference anything that might even brush up against sexual education. So instead of asking for clarification, I said, “Want to show me the long division problems so we can figure them out together?”
He passed me the sheet, and I raised both eyebrows at the purple-inked worksheet. “Your teacher’s still using a ditto machine?” I asked, staring at the copy that had obviously been made on one of those old-school duplicating devices my mom had only told us about--when lamenting how much easier we had it as teachers.
“Printers need computers, and Mr. Zion doesn’t like computers. He says they’re in direct conflict with hard work. A-B-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N—abomination. That was on the last spelling test. And that’s what he calls computers.”
Okay… So I guess the Bear Mountain school wasn’t issuing laptops like Barrington Prep—and just about every public school in Vancouver.
Also, based on the examples printed at the top of the worksheet, he was also teaching long division like it was still 1989.
Three questions immediately sprang to mind:
Did the Bear Mountain school system have some kind of exemption from following British Columbia’s Ministry of Education curriculum?
And if not… how mad would Holly be if I reported them for not aligning with provincial learning outcomes? At least when it came to math.
And also: “Exactly how old is Mr. Zion?” I asked Wabby.
“At least one hundred,” the little boy said with the full authority of a ten-year-old. “He’s really mean. He keeps calling me lazy, even though I’m trying my best. I don’t know why he became a teacher if he hates kids.”
Or maybe he just needs to retire, I thought to myself. My mom happily taught for most of her life, but she always said she knew it was time to go when she started despising the kids.
Teacher burnout wasn’t something I could help Wabby with, though. So I just said, “Okay, I’m going to teach you a really simple method to knock out all these problems.”
Wabby absolutely did not need to be sent back to the fourth grade.
It took less than thirty minutes to teach him long division using the current curriculum method. And once he got it, his whole face lit up.
He was so excited, he pulled out another ditto sheet and asked, “Can you help me with fractions, too?”
Actually, I could. Contrary to Mr. Zion’s assessment, Wabby was well-focused and eager to learn, which made him way easier to tutor than most of my Barrington summer school students.
Another hour passed as we worked through fractions, and we were halfway into a lesson on ratios when his mother came over to find us.
“Papa just texted me that dinner’s almost ready,” she said to Wabby. “We should get going before the spaghetti gets cold.”
“Yay, spaghetti—my favorite!”
Wabby leapt up from the couch but turned back to throw his arms around my shoulders. “Thank you, Miss Lark! I wish you were my teacher!”
Hugs weren’t allowed at Barrington Prep, but since his mom was standing right there, I risked a light pat on the back.
“Thank you. That compliment just made a tough day much nicer.”
“Hey, kid, why don’t you run on ahead. I just need to talk to your substitute teacher for a minute.”
“Okay.” Wabby shouldered his backpack and dashed toward the door. Apparently, he was highly motivated by the promise of spaghetti.
