Let me set the scene: It’s independent reading time in my second grade classroom. Everyone is busy reading a physical or virtual book of their choice. No one needs water, the bathroom, or any of a million other things they usually need me for. If I warn them I’m going, then suddenly they are hyper-aware that the teacher is gone. If I sneak out, they won’t even notice.
I’ve timed it. It takes a little over four minutes for me to signal the adjoining teacher, speed-walk to the restroom, pee, rinse my hands, and speed-walk back.
I have to do it. The art teacher was out today, which means I didn’t get my 50-minute planning period, so I haven’t had any time away from the children since… six hours ago. Including lunch. I’m going for it.
I usually get away with it, but this time, I come back to a fight between Hailey and Jason over one of those poppit toys they aren’t supposed to have out anyway.
I couldn’t begin to calculate how much learning time has been lost already this year to stomachaches, headaches, paper cuts, and hurt feelings. In the elementary school classroom, teachers are tasked with both teaching, and babysitting. I can’t leave them alone for a second.
***
I generally let the students sit under their desks while they do independent reading. Plenty of teachers allow students to sit on the floor, sit on their desks, stand at their tables, bounce on cushions, use clipboards and lie on carpets as they work. We even have a word for it: flexible seating.
One student, Aaron, was bigger than other kids of his age. He was a clumsy kid, and on this particular occasion, he fell from his chair to the floor as he climbed under his desk. His parents picked him up from school, worried he had a concussion, and I was told to document everything that had happened. In the end, he was totally fine, and no one pressed charges or blamed me for the incident. No one even told me not to let the students sit under their desks anymore. But I did once get a note on an observation that the upturned corner of one of my carpets presented a “safety hazard.”
Carpets and desks are apparently dangerous. Again, I have gone through two boxes of band aids in five weeks of school, mostly due to paper cuts, hang nails that were bitten down too far, scrapes from falling on the playground, and just over-picking old scabs. A friend who is a doctor told me to just give out all the band aids I can, since they can’t hurt, and it makes them feel better anyway.
***
A few years ago, Zebbie fell while playing tag. I came over and asked how it felt, and offered to sit with her until she felt like she could get up. I saw her fall pretty hard, so even though she tended to exaggerate things to get attention, I could tell this was a real injury this time. But, to my surprise, she got up and wanted to keep playing. She didn’t even complain the rest of the day.
The next morning, her mom came to my classroom (she worked at the school) to let me know Zebbie had broken her arm. She specifically told me not to blame myself. Mom noticed that her daughter was favoring her other hand as she played that evening, and took her to urgent care just to be sure. Sure enough, broken. Or fractured. Something.
During our outside snack/break time, I always say: “Eat first, then play.” Just yesterday, someone brought it to my attention that Mica was hurt, sitting on the blacktop. Apparently, she had fallen while doing a cartwheel with an apple in her hand. As she sat there, whimpering, rubbing her ankle, she continued to eat the apple. When she limped over to ask for an ice pack, she favored the wrong foot.
Any parent can tell you that kids get hurt all the time. A common trope in sit-coms is “baby-proofing” an apartment, and somehow, the baby finds the one thing that isn’t safe. Can we protect kids from everything? Of course not.
But if you Google “kids get hurt in school,” you’ll find hundreds of results from personal injury lawyers and their blurbs about who you can sue if your child gets hurt at school, from picking their nose with a sharp pencil to stapling their hand with a stapler that they weren’t allowed to touch to begin with. We can’t leave them alone for a second.
Teachers and parents.
Not so different.
Wonderfully evocative.
Some guilty feelings might make it even more realistic
Too true about the similarities sometimes between teachers and parents. I wonder about the people I know who are both teachers and parents, and how they can spend all day in class with an entire crowd of children sometimes and then go home to their own, exactly the same age and keep going.