2002-10-27 - 6:16 p.m.

There's nothing to say of any particular relevance when someone as mad and marvelous as Richard Harris dies. Not a damned thing. Just ask The Magistrate.

So on to other things.

I am kindergarten teacher now.

:: Wheel waits patiently for the titanic scream of horror to stop reverberating off the walls. Slowly the thud of toppling bodies hitting the floor in a state of nervosa perculsus dies away, and Wheel shuffles his notes as he continues. ::

Yes, yes. All your children are belong to me.

Julieclipse suggested getting a bike sticker to that effect ... one of those charming "I teach your children" bumper pasties that only licensed educators such as myself can purchase from the same boutiques at which one can purchase such dandies as telescoping pointers, ceramic apple-shaped pen-holders, maps of Elizabethan England with little cartoon Shakespeares and Raleighs and Burbages around the perimeters, and Cuisenaire rods.

I think, however, this would lead to an even greater number of near-death experiences on the road than I currently experience, as deranged working mothers tried to smear me into a brightly-colored road paste beneath the titanic wheels of their soccer-team toting Suburbans in order to eradicate the idea from their fragile minds.

Road paste or not, however, the fact remains.

I teach your children.

I've been given command over 18 students from the prestigious kindergarten ranks of the elite Emma E. Booker kindergarten "A" team. Their former teacher, whom I shall refer to as "Ms. KindaGone" was planning on transferring from the kindergarten "A" team to a position as head of the afterschool reading program.

Instead, she fled to Texas on Thursday, leaving me in the apparently semi-permanent position of kindergarten teacher to a roomful of confused children.

She left behind a group of thoroughly unstructured children, a classroom so charmingly messy that it teetered on the border of being a matter for men in HAZMAT suits, and a cesspool of festering resentments with the other kindergarten teachers.

Ms. Kindagone, it seems, was not fond of "structured" education, or having the children "do" anything other than "wander around" and "scream a lot".

Now, I'm all in favor of an open classroom education, but I do want the kids to stop screaming long enough to hear me explain to them how to make a paper bag puppet.

Unfortunately, my experiences with the other teachers have demonstrated to me precisely WHY Ms. Kindagone may have been so willing to flee to the hacker-filled lethally-injected-corpse-ridden wastelands of Texas.

They're fucking stormtroopers.

These kids are supposed to be clamped down, and HARD.

I think there's some sort of morbid fear here, an air like the guards walking the walls at Attica, fearing at any moment the distinctive :: ting :: of the dropped fork that signals the Great Uprising. They want these kids to fear the Man, and they want them to fear him EARLY, so they don't have the fire in their bellies to raise hell when they stalk the halls at Booker High School, their gigantic, gangling, afro-topped forms dwarfing the cowering, balding geometry teachers in their wake.

Or maybe the esteemed educators have decided that the only way out of poverty for these kids is in a neat marching order along the straight and narrow to the gold-paved streets and chicken-filled pots of Pleasantville.

They are to walk in a straight line, silently, arms folded (the famous "Booker Bend", an ironic name, of course, because the institution certainly has no intention of doing so), no touching the walls or fence or grass or each other or bugs or the sidewalk or unnecessary air particles.

They're to spend two-to-three hours each day hammering their way through worksheets, covering one letter and one number every few days until they get that letter or that number RIGHT.

They are to shout out the months of the year, days of the week, and numbers from 1-30 along with the alphabet and the sounds of each letter in perfect, harmonious Hitlerjugend tones, each day.

No recess unless they earn it.

No movies unless they earn them.

No juice unless they learn to stop ...

Seriously. It's more than a little demented.

And I really want these kids to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted and well-educated kids who ENJOY coming to kindergarten so they have a shot at deciding whether or not they want to ENJOY going to school for the rest of their lives.

I don't want them to stop going to school because they hate it.

I want them to stop going to school because they realize the rest of it isn't as good as kindergarten.

Unfortunately, I have to ensconce myself thoroughly, first. As an underbudgeted elementary school at the far-flung edges of the eastern reaches, Emma E. Booker was ecstatic to hire a "long-term" substitute for $11.00 an hour as opposed to contracting an actual teacher and being forced to shill out for benefits, insurance, paperwork, and all the other gobbledygook that goes with government work.

And they keep asking me if I'm really coming back, so maybe my position isn't THAT tenuous ... but I only got the job on the say-so of the two kindergarten teachers who met me when I came to sub for this class I am now teaching a few weeks ago. I don't know if they just liked my shoes or my mellow Groove demeanor or my apparent lack of willpower, but they firmly recommended me for the post.

So I'll need to make sure that I won't be cast aside like an old peanut hull when I decide to make waves.

But they're gonna learn a lesson or two from me, pilgrim. I guaran-damn-tee it.

My kids are GOING to recess.

My kids AREN'T going to be forced to drill dully away at endless worksheets.

My kids ARE going to learn about the life that's crawling all around them and the meaning therein.

My kids AREN'T going to sit down and shriek the months of the year at me at exactly 2:12 every day.

So keep your pencils sharp and your sneakers tied tight, boys and girls.

It's playtime.

- \/\/heel I still be working as a teacher if this page is ever found? No.

*

Put this baby on, and sing along:

*****

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