Forgive Us Our Trespasses. Diane Gensler

spoke well of the school.

      I guess she doesn’t mind cramming herself into this seat every day. I would have jumped at the opportunity to sit in something else. I guess she doesn’t want to call attention to herself. She’s right. That would make her stand out, and I can’t think of another solution. I’m sure they won’t let me change all the desks in my room.

      “Ms. B, I’m a lefty not a righty,” Billy asserted.

      “Oh.....Just do the best you can for now,” was all I had to offer.

      “I’ll try to find out if they make these seats with the desk on the other side,” I remarked at the end of the class period after I had watched him contort his whole body like Houdini to be able to fill out a form. I never found one after asking just about everybody in the school, including the maintenance worker.

      How can they not have one lefty desk in this whole building? They obviously don’t care about students with differences.

      The next day I suggested that my lefty student put an empty desk adjacent to his and use that surface for writing instead. He declined that offer.

      I presumed my students would be the most well-behaved students since this was a Catholic school, and they were required to wear uniforms, attend religion class and church services, and adhere to strict rules I heard about in the faculty meetings. For example, I was told to assign homework every night. I didn’t agree with this, because that’s a lot of homework accrued for one night from every teacher. Plus, my lessons didn’t always require work to be done for the next day, nor did the students need to do work every night to reinforce the learning that took place. And sometimes they just deserved a break!

      I was also told to be strict, and that if a child came to class without a writing instrument, he or she was to a receive detention on the spot. I didn’t agree with that either. As a matter of fact, several months into the school year I had a student come to class for an entire week without a pen or pencil. When I finally gave him a detention and asked him the next day for the consent form signed by a parent, he said, “My parents told me to tell you I’m not going to serve it.”

      “Why not, Joseph?”

      “That’s what they said.”

      I called his home and left several messages for his parents who never called me back. I trudged outside to the parking lot during dismissal, risking life and limb to find his mother amid the stampede of students making their end-of-the-day, I-can’t-wait-to-go-home escape.

      I shouted her name, but she didn’t answer.

      I ran up to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

      “Excuse me, but you know your son got a detention from me, right?”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “I know?” You have nothing else to say?

      “Well, he didn’t return the consent form. He can’t serve it without that. Did you sign it?”

      “You’ll have to talk to my husband.”

      “Can’t you sign the consent form? He needs to serve this detention.”

      “I’m not going to speak to you about this. You’ll have to talk to my husband.” She walked away.

      What?! What’s with that? She acts like I did something wrong. Why can’t she address this issue? This is pretty “cut and dry.” It’s not like this is something disputable. The kid came to English class repeatedly without something to write with. It’s the policy of this school to receive a detention for that. I was even nice about it, and let him get away with it for days. Why won’t she answer me?

      I never found out what the story was, but later I assumed it was yet another parent who didn’t approve of my teaching in the school and was giving me a hard time. When I sought the advice of other middle school teachers, they told me to “let it go.” Did they know something they weren’t telling me?

      After a number of students had gathered in the room on this first day, I peeked in to find average eleven and twelve-year-olds greeting each other after time away and chatting about summer vacations. I forgot most of them were familiar with each other after attending school here since kindergarten. This wasn’t usually the case in public school. Some of them were so tall, they could have been eighth graders. And some of them looked like they still belonged in elementary school.

      Oh, they gave me some babies, I thought. I’ll take good care of them.

      After the frenzy in the hallway died down, and it appeared that all my students were present, I entered my classroom and shut the door. I was about to address my homeroom class when the loud speaker crackled and a voice announcing the start of school broadcast into the room. Nobody seemed to notice my slight jolt, and I shut my mouth. I was so eager to start that I had forgotten about the morning announcements!

      I froze in place and listened with the students. After a few words, everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. I placed my hand over my heart and recited the words along with the students. I was checking around the room to ensure that everyone was reciting it and scoping out any troublemakers that weren’t. So far I had a group of good American citizens.

      Next, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer began. The children automatically bowed their heads.

      Why hadn’t I foreseen this? I thought. Hadn’t I learned my lesson yet? Didn’t I think there would be prayers?

      The Virgin Mary already had her head bowed not far from the loudspeaker. In order to be respectful, I bowed my head also, but I did not utter the words. I raised my head once to check that all the students were reciting the prayer. It appeared that these students were very respectful or very well-trained. After the Lord’s Prayer everyone seated themselves automatically with military precision. There was no need for any direction from me.

      So glad I don’t need to say anything!

      Finally, I walked to the front of the room and introduced myself, welcomed the kids, and took attendance. I tried right away to learn the names of the twenty-five students in my homeroom class. We were discussing their class schedules, and I was trying to ensure that everyone was familiar with where they were going when the bell rang. Some of the students stayed with me for English Language Arts while others moved directly across the hall to Mrs. A. I was glad that I had some of her students in my homeroom so that I could get to know other sixth graders.

      After the brief shuffle, I looked around at the different faces. I had directed the “new” students to also sit anywhere until I moved them to assigned seats which I did speedily after I introduced myself again.

      I took a deep breath, as this seemed like a very ordinary first day of school. I suppose I hadn’t known what to expect after receiving my “love note.” No hands flew up accusing me of being a Jew and asking why I was in the school. So far so good!

      I distributed copies of “Ms. B’s Classroom Rules, Regulations and Policies” and went over each item, trying to sound like a cross between a drill sergeant and a nun. It’s always important for a teacher to lay the ground work right away so students know your expectations, what you consider proper conduct and what your procedures are for managing your classroom. In other words, this is to stop bad behavior before it starts. They can’t use the excuse that they didn’t know. If anyone considers misbehaving this early on, this will give them pause, at least temporarily. Even on the first day of school, it is usually easy to identify the more challenging students, especially if they call any of the rules into question.

      With my rules, regulations and policies, I tried to be concise and specific. I was conveying to my students that I expected appropriate and orderly behavior and for students to come to class prepared and organized. But I also expected them to enjoy themselves, learn a lot and even have fun, which I made sure to tell them.

      Then I had my administrative duties to perform with forms to complete, textbooks to assign, and dress code and fire procedures to review.

      Time flew, and before I knew it, they were out the