Homeroom
We were the leftovers, assigned to Home Room in the Home Ec room, tucked away in an upper corner of the aging Horace Mann Junior High School. Inexplicably, our Home Room teacher, Mr. Roan, taught Shop. Every morning he climbed the flights of stairs from the noisy, oily machines of the basement, clutching his coffee...
Suspended
The locker room walls were painted puke green and lined like a cage with metal hooks, and red mesh equipment bags hung from the hooks like meat. One of the bags was swinging, and I was swinging in it, and Drew McKinnick slapped at it and did his punching, and the janitor got me down....
Heat
All hell broke loose in my first French class when our teacher tried to explain the linguistic differences between those who measured the temperature in Fahrenheit and those who measured it in Centigrade. “When the mercury rises,” Madame C. told us, “Americans say ‘It is hot’–but those who speak romance languages say ‘It makes heat.’”...
The Music Teachers of St. Augustine’s Elementary
None of them last long. The first one is large and imposing, wearing blue shirt-dresses that swing just above her nylon calves. Her hair is iron-gray and swept into a stiff marcelled helmet, and her glasses have silver chains. On the first day she marches in, faces us, and sings out stridently: “Hel-lo, boys and...
Crayons
A student comes to ask me which is the right way to say crayon and I don’t know. As I look into her eager blue eyes, her pink junior high cheeks, all I think is that I never called a crayon a crayon until I was a teacher. I always called them colors. Her question opens...
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