| |
Student teaching was completely different than Anne expected. It was easier for her advisors to get her into an English classroom for her middle school placement than it was for them to get her into an art classroom.
Within the first week of her first placement – at a nearby middle school – Anne found herself thrown in head first as her supervising teacher had to call in sick for a week. After a quickly improvised grammar lesson using their workbooks, Anne was able to gather her lesson plans and finish out the rest of the week with a much more entertaining – for her – lesson.
It wasn’t easy. She didn’t have the eighty or so names learned yet for her four classes. While the teacher had a seating chart, even Anne knew that the students had been adjusted while the chart had not been.
The substitute teacher practically sat at the teacher’s desk and read a book while Anne taught.
Even then, Anne loved the challenge. She loved how these students actually did what she requested of them, for the most part. She loved the order and chaotic order and the disorder that varied throughout the classes.
It was so much better than what greeted her when she returned ‘home’ each day.
“Anne!” Mary would nearly always call out. “Where have you been?”
“At the middle school,” she called back.
“It’s after five!”
“School lets out at 3:15.”
“So? You should have been home at 3:30!”
“I’m not allowed to leave campus until 3:30, and this week my supervising teacher had late bus duty, so I had to stick around until 3:45.”
And then, Anne didn’t add aloud, I went and hid in the library for an hour so that I could get some work done in peace. She still had handouts to finish designing and she wanted to look over and review what her supervising teacher wanted her to teach the next day.
“Who is going to cook supper?” Mary whined.
“Send Charles out to get some fried chicken,” she suggested, turning to make her way up the stairs. “In fact, didn’t you get my text telling you that I was going to be later than usual?”
“I haven’t checked my phone all afternoon,” Mary whined. “The boys kept me busy.”
Anne sighed, “Thankfully, I sent Charles the same text.”
One afternoon, Anne returned while Charles and Derek were having their tutoring session. She’d expected to see him, smiled softly, and started to carry her bags up to her room. All she wanted was a break from nouns and pronouns and grammar rules and everything else having to do with the parts of speech.
“Anne!” Mary called out from the other room. “Where have you been?”
“The same place I’ve been for the past five weeks!” Anne called back, stressed at everything else she was having to deal with to prepare for her last week at the middle school.
There were the observations of three other teachers in different subjects. There were the write-ups about the observations for the three other teachers. There was getting her lesson plans cleaned up and put into her portfolio for her mid-semester meeting with her University Supervisor.
But the huge thing, the thing that was hanging over her head, was her second observed lesson with her University Supervisor. The feeling of being overwhelmed wasn’t helped by the sinus infection that was threatening to cut her off at her knees.
“Well, you don’t have to yell at me,” Mary sniffed.
Rolling her eyes, Anne looked over at Derek for a moment. She caught him watching her and sent him a smile that was more compressed than the one she had previously directed at him.
“What’s for supper, Anne?” Mary called out not thirty seconds later.
Turning towards the doorway where she could see Mary stretched out across the sofa, Anne took a few deep breaths. If she did anything else, or said anything, without that moment to collect herself, there was no telling what she would do or say. Or throw.
Between clenched teeth, her good mood from the day now blown, Anne replied, “I don’t know. I don’t have time to cook right now. I have to put my finishing touches on my lesson for tomorrow. I only came home because I left something in my room.”
“Well, it’s almost six,” Mary replied, waving her hand back and forth with impatience. “You can finish your homework after supper.”
“I cannot finish my homework after supper because after supper you’ll ask me to wash the dishes or tackle that mountain of laundry sitting in front of the washing machine that doesn’t contain a single piece of my clothes unless somebody borrowed something without asking. After that, you’ll ask me to read one of the boys a bedtime story because you have a headache and reading to the boys is a critical developmental step towards their vocabulary skills and learning abilities. After that, it’ll be time for me to go to bed so that I can repeat this day tomorrow, at five in the morning, without a finished lesson plan when I’m being observed by the person who determines my grade for this placement!”
Drawing in a deep breath, Anne felt better after snapping.
“Well,” Mary sniffed again, “you don’t have to snap at me.”
“Then don’t ask me what I’m making for supper when it’s obvious that I’m not cooking tonight.”
Derek and Charles sat frozen at the dining room table. Charles, his eyes wide, had never seen Anne like this. Derek, recognizing Anne’s hints of suppressed personality before this, wanted to applaud.
“I got this,” he called out, holding up his phone as he went online to order from the pizza place that Anne would bring pizza home from. “The usual pizza order Anne brings home?” he asked the room.
“Can you add some cheese sticks to the order?” Mary asked, looking at him through the doorway from her place on the sofa.
“Mary!” Anne hissed.
“What?” the sister shrugged.
“It’s fine, Anne,” Derek interrupted. “As much as I’ve eaten here a cheese stick order, three pizzas, and something for dessert will barely pay you back for all the meals you’ve cooked for me.”
“Ohh, brownies,” Mary hummed.
“What about those cinnamon roll bites they have,” Anne requested instead.
“But I don’t like those,” Mary complained.
“Mary!” Charles snapped this time. “You already requested the cheese sticks,” he hissed at his wife.
“But...”
“No buts. You’ll end up stealing the box and refusing to share them with anybody.”
Softly, from where she’d worked her way closer to Derek, Anne whispered, “We can do the brownies.” She was already starting to feel awful about snapping at her sister. She was living in Mary’s house rent-free and she’d been slacking off on cooking dinner ever since her student teaching placement had started.
“Hush,” he whispered to her. “Mary bought brownies from the grocery store today and ate them all before you even got here.”
Anne turned to look at him wide-eyed. Drawing in a deep breath, she started reviewing her cycle mentally. “Oh,” she breathed, nodding her head. “You might want to order the brownies. Mary will be unbearable if she doesn’t get some more chocolate.”
“Then I’m ordering both,” he stated, looking up at her. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Too bad you can’t just skip Thursday’s tutoring session. Or subtly hint to Charles that he might get some more work done in the library.”
“Why?” Derek asked, a bit confused.
“Because Thursday just might be more... emotional than today,” she hinted. “You have a sister and a sister-in-law.”
It took him a bit longer before he got her subtle hint.
“I’ll be putting a freezer lasagna in the oven anyway,” Anne pointed out. “Or a pot roast on low heat in the crock pot.”
“Pot roast with potatoes sounds good,” he grinned.
Nudging him, she told him to get that pizza ordered before they started turning into cannibals.
