The Adventures of a First Year Middle School Teacher

Problems Already?

The first day of real classes had finally come and Sandra was more than prepared. If only the technology worked as she would have liked it to, as it should. She could not use the projector to project the things she wanted to teach. Neither was there a way to show the videos she wanted to show . Every activity that she wanted to implement were hard to execute. Every attempt at being creative was in some way impossible. They depended on the projector to work, but she eventually managed to find a way to make it work.

Early that morning during breakfast and while students were arriving, Sandra sought out for Mr. Delaney to let him know that the projector she had in her classroom was not working. She set out to the auditorium where the kids that did not eat breakfast sat as they waited for the first bell to release them to the classrooms. Hoping that he would be there with Mrs. Hinton, who gave her the break detention duties papers, but he was not. Instead, she found herself in front of Mrs. Hinton having a lively conversation with Mr. Buchanan.

He greeted her with a smile on his face while Mrs. Hinton noticed how pleased he was with Sandra's presence.

- "Come in and sit down with us Mrs. Monteverde. Here is a chair for you." The chair was close enough to be by his side but not close enough to have one think that he was trying to get her by his side and it was the only chair in there other than the ones that the Mrs. Hinton and he were sitting on.

Sandra wanted to do nothing but sit down and relax, but could not. She needed to let the principal know that she needed another projector for her classroom, so that she could teach the way she wanted to. She wanted to sit down next to Mr. Buchanan even though she did not feel as though she should be admitting that to herself for reasons she did not quite yet understand.

- "I would, but I am trying to find Mr. Delaney. Do either one of you know where he is?" Sandra looked from Mrs. Hinton to Mr. Buchanan.

- " I believe I saw him in the main office. You should try there." Mrs. Hinton's short hair did not move when she turned her head from Sandra to Mr. Buchanan. She seemed to want to get rid of her right there and then and Sandra could not think why until she heard her continue the story she had been in the middle of telling him before I had barged in to interrupt.

Sandra walked to the main office to see if Mr. Delaney was there. He was not and they could not tell her where he was. She walked back to her room hoping to talk to him before she left that day. She would attempt again during her planning period or during snack after helping out in the snack store. She went back to her classroom and waited for first period to walk in.

Afraid of the new teacher and their new environment, the classes were quiet and the students took notes from the board as Sandra wrote them and had them turn to one another every fifteen minutes to talk about what they had just written and she had taught. Her throat was getting dry from all the talking, but took a sip of water when she needed to. The students in each class followed instructions well and even said at least one thing about the notes they were taken when she asked.

She was not sure how well the strategy, "Say Something," would work and if they would talk to one another. To her surprise, it all worked out well and exactly how she planned. She was glad to not have problems with the students while she was having problems with the projector not working. Her lesson planning came right in the nick of time. She needed to make copies for tomorrow's assignment and was planning on stopping by Mr. Delaney's office to talk to him about the projector.

She headed towards his office and hoped to find him there. The book keeper was there, so she asked if he was in his office. The book keeper, Mrs. Russell, replied that he was not. Sandra could feel the stress build up on her shoulders and walked off to the work room to make copies. She followed the instructions to the tee and the machine started popping out copies in no time until it didn't. It had only made six to seven copies when she had a hundred and fifty to make. The printer itself pointed out where the problem was. She resolved it and told it to print again only for it to jam again and this time after having made only three copies.

Sandra felt hopeless and even more stress than before. Problems with the copy machine meant that there would be no copies for the students. No copies for the students meant that there was no work for them to do and the possibility of them doing something that would get them in trouble. Sandra could not bare the thought. Even though she had a discipline plan in place, she did not know how she would react to student misbehavior. For the most part, she was a rational person able to correct kids' behavior through talking to them, explaining things, and being forthright with them.

The real problem was the thought of not knowing what they would do, and the thought of them creating havoc in the classroom. Sandra had three simple rules: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Resourceful. These three simple rules were what she based her discipline plan on and what her zero policy ran on. The printer was still messing up after every third copy and Sandra did not know if she could keep up with that for the next hundred copies. She decided to try her luck on the other printer by the seventh grade hallway.

She was determined to make the best of this situation, but it was taking a bit of a toll on her. She stood in front of the copy machine and started to make copies. The copy machine took its time, but it was making copies until it stopped after 20 copies. The printer was jammed, but not in the same place that the other had been jamming. The bell for snack time was about to ring. She did not have the time to make anymore copies, so she decided to instead stop there and maybe try her luck again after school.

Walking back towards her classroom, she saw Mr. Buchanan heading in the opposite direction. He saw her and smiled at her without taking his eyes off of her. She felt a little sigh come out of her mouth.

-"What are you up to Mrs. Monteverde? Are you making trouble?" She laughed a little too loud for the hallway where there were students in the classrooms trying to learn. She managed to quiet her laugh after she realized how loud she was.

- "Yes, I am making trouble. How about you? Are you going to make trouble here with me?" Sandra did not know where that reply came from. She was usually not that sharp, but he seemed to have that effect on her. He was not expecting a retort of that kind and was caught unawares. He was also not sure if she was teasing or if she meant it innocently. He still had not figured her out yet, and he was willing to go out of his way to find out.

- "Only if you promise not to get caught." He finally decided to keep the teasing going to see how far it went. Sandra did not realize until he said that what she had just begun. For some reason she had always been a little slow when it came to getting double entendres. If it had not been for Nick who was always either being sarcastic or using innuendos, she would not have gotten it as quick as she did.

- "I promise." She decided that if she did not end it now that it would be harder to keep it up and was surprised with herself at having such a knack to keep a conversation of that kind with someone especially Mr. Buchanan. It was weird to only know him by his last name and not his first name because when she was with him the relationship did not seem professional at all. His easy going personality helped relax her shoulders and the tension that had been there all day began to meltaway.

- "It sounds like you have a plan. Care to tell me about it?" Mr. Buchanan baited her as he tried to keep the teasing going and know how far she would go to keep it up, but more importantly to keep her in his sight and by his side. It pleased him to have her in his company.

- " I am in the process of creating one. I will let you know as soon as I am finished with it, so we can execute it together. For now I must go back to my cave and finish planning it." She laughed inwardly at her witty reply and again wondered what had possessed her to act in such a way. She stepped away from him and walked towards the school as he replied.

- "I am going to hold you to that." He was not relenting that easily and her scurrying away from him only made him think that she was wanting to play along with him without being too obvious about it.

Back in her room as she tried to finish one of the trainings that was due at the end of the month, Sandra could not help thinking about that encounter with Mr. Buchanan and at how he looked back at her with every word he said.