Early Dismissal

Early Dismissal

or

Busted ,with no Chase Scene, or was O J Simpson really Innocent…

What can I say? It was Valentine’s day and love was in the air.  My lesson ended a few minutes early and the students began to pack up with the enevitable migration towards the door.  Usually, to avoid this problem of massing at the door I have my students stay at their desks until the bell goes. 

 I was slack this day.  The student nearest the door opened the door and stood out in the hall.  Maybe the air was fresher there or student x was one step closer to freedom.  I will never know as apparently x drifted away like an astronaut floating away from the shuttle without a tether.  He was gone.  The rest of the class asked if they could go early and I said…drum role… “Yes.” 

It was still a good 3 if not four minutes until the bell went.  I was tired I was slack and I was caught, as a very angry PT ( to preserve the privacy of the current administrators I will use fictional initials in my text).  Paul Trutnak was quite irritated with me as he walked into my classroom moments later and inquired if I had let my kids out early.

I looked Paul in the eye, for I , like George Washington could not tell a lie very well, and again for the second time in one day I said the word that sealed my fate and would grow to haunt me in later life, (I’m projecting), “Yes.”

Maybe a little flashback and background information is in order here for you the reader to truly understand the impact and historical importance of what went down in my classroom that day, as it was not actually recorded on YouTube for a local or national audience.  

I started out as a child, at a very tender age and by the age of 24 I realized that I wanted to become a teacher.  While at university I taught first year geography labs to kids that were a year younger than I and realized that in addition to the power, and status this gig also paid my tuition. I liked teaching. 

Many of these first year students actually did their assignments and seemed, at least on the surface that they wanted to be there, so did I.  In that moment, on that day, I think it was a Thursday, I vowed I would rise up from my immigrant blue collar roots and become a man of letters, many letters, both vowels and consonants, and I would become a teacher.  

I then taught for thirty two years without incident, (Unless you count the day that my dog Kennedy followed me to school one day and was later picked up by the authorities) until the afore mentioned early dismissal scenario played out in the halls of St Mary’s High School.  It was a fateful day.  I hang my head in shame.  Can I go now...I know its early.