I Walk Through the Familiar Front Door.
Sometimes I work as a substitute teacher at my kids’ former elementary school.
In a way, this is fun. I know my way around the school, because I volunteered there so frequently. I know a lot of the staff and teachers, some who have been there since long before Dylan started kindergarten. The school has a lot of good teachers, and it’s a generally positive environment.
But in another way, working at their old school is not fun. In fact, it sometimes strikes me as devastating.
On the short drive to the school, I don’t have to think. I drove that path so many times, I know it by heart. It was a drive I treasured, because I had chattering kids in car seats in the back of the van. There were sippy cups with chocolate milk strewn about, and purple-crayon-scrawled pages on the floor amidst stray Goldfish snack crackers.
Now the car is clean. The ride is silent.
Turning on the radio doesn’t help. There’s nothing to replace the sound of little kids being little kids.
So I get to school, and I park in the lot. I used to drive through the drop-off line, along with the other parents. I see the other parents now, and I remember the time I dropped off Shane on Dr. Seuss day, dressed as “Thing 2.” Except it wasn’t Dr. Seuss day at all, so six-year-old Shane felt completely out of place and rushed after my car in the parking lot – but he was too late. I got a call from the office asking me to come back and talk to my sobbing child. He was the saddest “Thing 2” in the whole world.
Then I walk through the familiar front door. I walk into the office and greet people I know so well, who don’t remember me at all.
Day after day, I would walk into that office and call Dylan out of class. I’d feed him a handful of almonds and go outside while he ran around the perimeter of the entire building. Exercise and Omega 3s, I’d read, were helpful for kids who needed to focus. I did this for a few weeks, until the principal found out what was going on and put an end to my “ridiculous” behavior.
“We can’t have parents coming in here and disrupting the school day,” she reprimanded.
Once, she appeared in a BMX bike show in the school gym. I took toddler Shane; Dylan was in kindergarten. The principal sat on a raised wooden platform while a BMX bicycle literally flew over her head. Everyone was awestruck.
That principal was all about test results and government funding. She retired way, way, way too late.
But now they have a new principal – a great one, who was the vice principal when my kids went there. I remember turning to her when we had real problems, and she always got results. She doesn’t remember me.
I can’t count the hours I spent pushing a breakfast cart for staff appreciation days, chaperoning field trips, running back and forth from the stage during school talent shows, volunteering at lunchtime, and watching school assemblies. I helped with so many room parties, I can’t count them all.
Now my boys are teenagers, and there are no room parties. Assemblies and field trips are rare. My boys listen somewhere while a teacher lectures. The good teachers find ways for the kids to actively learn – and my kids still have some good teachers.
I try to be a good one, too, even as a substitute.
Even though I am sad.