Funny Day

You win some, and you lose some. If you’re me, anyway.

First of all, I forgot to bring my lunch to school with me, and so I ended up buying lunch in the cafeteria: potatoes, peas, a chopped kiwi, chocolate milk, and seven corn dog nuggets.

Then, in the day’s final period, I noticed two otherwise good students writing in their binders while I was reading Tom Sawyer to them. “Put your binders away,” I told them. “I’m reading to you.” For emphasis, I used the paperback book in my hand to tap the boy on the head.

They looked a bit surprised, and I realized that they were still copying down some notes I’d just given moments before. “Oh,” I said. “I thought you were doing your homework.”

“So does that mean I can hit you, now?” the boy asked.

“Yes,” I said, bowing towards him so he could use his book on me. I tell you, I just love hearing the chuckles when I respond wackily like that.

And finally, I attended the boys’ and girls’ basketball games after school, in support of my students. I really don’t ever do this sort of thing, so I decided to go all out, and bought a slice of pizza, a chili dog, and a Sprite to help myself pass the time.

(Now, here I need to add a bit of history into the mix. See, a while back, to model the writing process for persuasive essays, I composed live before my students an essay arguing that people should not drink soda. After all, it is costly and causes health problems, right? Right, they all agreed. But back to basketball.)

Going to a sports event as a teacher is a little unnerving, if only because parents mutter (or sometimes shout) at the coach for putting the next-to-smallest boy on the basketball team under the basket right there with the other team’s tall kid, or for not putting such-and-such-a-type of player in.

Also, when students see teachers outside of the classroom (particularly teachers like me who really only come out of the classroom to monitor the hallway between classes, as far as students can tell) they don’t necessarily run over and high-five them, at least not when I’m the teacher. This being the case, I couldn’t be sure that more than a small handful of the many kids I knew there at the game actually noticed that I was there, too.

I needn’t have worried. After the girls’ game, I crossed paths with one of my student athletes, and congratulated her on her playing.

“Thanks,” she said, and then added reproachfully, “Hey, Mr. Jacobs, I heard you were drinking soda.”

What neither of us knew was that I would be coming home to a dinner of simply boiled, unseasoned, homegrown sweet potatoes, corn, and red beets. And that counts as a win, if you ask me.