“Okay folks,” I said. “Check out this neat trick.” A bunch of Amazon third graders looked at me expectantly as I got ready to show them the math trick I’d worked out when I was bored. “We’re talking about the Greatest Common Factor, today.”
I got a chorus of exasperated groans in reply. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I know I know. This is soooo easy that you’re tired of it. Right? Right.”
More groans and shaking of heads. A hand went up. “Mrs Grange, this stuff is haaaard!” A bunch of kids grumbled in agreement.
“Just give Mr Gibson your attention,” Grange said, staying at her desk. “This will help and he only has half an hour.” My stomach grumbled. I was skipping lunch for this. Somehow, Brollish got wind of my plans to guest lecture in Mrs Grange class.
I could leave my kiddos with Tarnia in the lunchroom and skip my own lunch when I wasn’t required to be teaching, but I had to be “supervising” my preschoolers during their scheduled nap time. Beouf tried to have my back, but technically the giant bitch was within her rights as Principal.
“How can the baby teacher teach us math?” A kid I didn’t know asked; his cheek smashed lazily into the palm of his hand.
Mrs Grange didn’t bother to get up from her desk. “Just because he teaches the babies doesn’t mean he doesn’t know much more than them, Kayden.” The kid sat up straight under her glare. “Or do you think you’ll be smarter than me once you’ve reached fourth grade?”
“No ma’am.”
Another student behind Kayden tapped him on the shoulder. “Mr Gibson taught me to read!” she said. Holy crud, Hyacinth had gotten big! I almost didn’t recognize her.
“Please proceed, Mr Gibson.”
I smiled. “Thank you Mrs Grange.” I walked over to the board. “I assume you all have something to take notes on. Whiteboards or notebook paper?”
“They should all have their tablets out and ready, Mr Gibson.” The few unprepared third graders took the hint and dug around in their desks.
I walked up to the board. “So let’s take a second to consider the words. Greatest Common Fac-…” And I stopped cold. I couldn’t reach the board. Out of habit, I looked around for a step stool. I found none. “Um…I can’t reach.”
Giggling from the students. My classroom wasn’t Little equipped either, but I’d been teaching in it so long that I’d adapted it for my purposes. Here? Not so much. “A chair please?” I said as calmly as I could. I glanced at the clock.
Tick. Tock. My stomach growled again. If I was even a minute late, Brollish would put it in my file. If I didn’t do a good enough job for Grange, I’d be “unreliable” or some made up stuff, I was sure.
“Hurry!” Mrs Grange. clapped. “Time is money, kids!”
A student pushed an empty chair up to the front and gave me a friendly nod. “Thank you Mason.” I nodded back. Mason was a good kid. I tried climbing up the chair and pulled myself up and I scrambled up. These chairs were NOT meant for someone my size.
I stood up and grabbed a stylus for the digital board. “Let’s talk about Greatest. Common. Factor. What does it mean? Let’s look at those words and use the commutative property of…”
“This is stupid!” A voice called from the back. “Why do we need to know this? When are we ever gonna use this stuff?”
“Jeremy Merriwether!” Mrs Grange barked.
I held out my palm in the universal sign for “stop”. “I think I got this, Mrs Grange.” Jeremy Merriwether was a former student of mine. “Question Mr Merriwether?”
“Why do we gotta learn this?” He demanded to know. “When are we ever going to know this?”