• Published 12th May 2013
  • 2,560 Views, 153 Comments

Summer break, with much at stake. - My little pedagogue



A high school teacher and a lab technician undergo some alarming changes. A "Five Score, Divided by Four" side fiction.

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Prologue: School's out

I stared at my laptop display, reading, and re-reading the same lines over and over. The words made perfect sense, but my brain was barely able to keep me awake, let alone absorb any semblance of meaning behind the text.

‘Learning objectives:'
1) All to be able to define the mechanism of Brownian motion.
2) Most to be able to explain the relationship between Brownian motion and temperature.
3) Some to be able to explain the link between temperature, Brownian motion, and rate of reaction’

‘Learning outcome: Produce a poster (individually, or in pairs) communicating this information to a viewer between the ages of 6 to 10’

‘Poster work’ I sighed internally… not my finest hour, it was a bit of a cop-out to just plan a ‘colouring in’ lesson, but things tended to get like that around the end of the school year. Pupils weren’t going to be motivated to try anything too taxing. Hey, at least I wasn’t just showing a Pixar DVD to keep everyone pacified… it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let my classroom turn into a day care centre.

The sound of a mug being placed next to me snapped me out of my reverie.

“Hey sleepy! Not seen you all day. Did you manage to grab lunch?” I groaned in resentment at the chipper tone from my lab technician, Sharon. Where the hell does she get this kind of energy from? “That’s a no then?” Sharon’s question was phrased as a conclusion.

I reached for the mug and set about inhaling the contents as fast as I can “Thanks for the coffee Sharon”

Sharon’s tone shifted from a chirp to one of either mild disapproval, or concern. Maybe a bit of both, I was never really good at reading other adults’ voices. “You’re going to wreck your guts if you keep drinking that stuff on an empty stomach.”

I pull my face out of the mug long enough to swallow and reply, “Narcolepsy mid class, or coffee-shits afterwards. Pick one.” My face dropped further as I studied the depleted contents of my mug.

“I pick the one where you eat a damn sandwich with your coffee and can function like a normal human being!” Sharon giggled… ah, not disapproval then, just mock-concern. “Your face was priceless then, it’s just coffee!” Sharon turns to leave the lab, “Get out early today, and get some sleep. No excuse to be working late at the end of the summer term, I wanna see our birthday boy bright and rested tonight!”

“Yes Miss Barrett, it’s in my planner!” I manage a smile as she leaves.

Pausing in the doorway, she turns to flash her infectious smile once more. “Damn Skippy you have, we’re gonna paint the town red tonight!” any opportunity to advise Sharon on the virtues of drinking in moderation disappeared with her as she vanished down the hall.

Sharon always gets a smile out of me when she finds me in a slump. I’m not actually grumpy, but being relatively new to the teaching profession, I’d not really got the hang of my work-life balance, and I need to save all my energy and enthusiasm for keeping animated in front of the kids.

At that very point, the lunch-bell catalysed my shift in mood. My posture straightened, and my expression brightened in preparation for the remaining hour of the academic year. “Showtime” I grinned.

My name is Carl Lee, and I’m going to educate the shit out of these kids!

My year 10 class filed in and set up as quietly as could be expected on the last day of term. No complaints… until I presented my learning objectives in the most deadpan way possible, eliciting a few groans of exasperation…

So far so good, I fought to hide my smile. Bear with me kids, I’m going somewhere with this…

The attention span was beginning to deteriorate further as I loaded a particularly dry video to introduce the topic.

Ok, it’s concise and informative, but not what a room full of fifteen year olds are going to be stimulated by on the last afternoon of the summer term. Going well, time to strike.

A minute into the video, I wailed in anguish to snap the class out of wherever their mind was drifting. “Uuuagh!
boring! boring! boring!” the point was emphasised as I jumped and gesticulated in mock-rage. “My jimmies have never been so rustled!” I’ve found it’s worth throwing in a few of those maymay one liners I hear kids using every now and then. There always tends to be a couple of pupils that get a giggle out of that. “How on earth am i supposed to teach this? It's a lobotomy in video form!” my tirade subsides into heavy breathing as I quickly scan the class. I could see expressions ranging from fear, to confusion, to barely contained laughter.

I straightened up from my ‘rage hunch’ and announce our task for the lesson. A wide shit eating grin plastered across my face to reassure some of the more worried looking pupils that it was indeed, a joke. “Ok chums. Today, your task is to make communicating information on Brownian motion fun. We’re looking at designing a poster aimed at much younger kids to communicate our L.O.s to them. Left side of the lab has generic info packs on Brownian motion, separated into basic, intermediate, and advanced levels of complexity” I gestured to a tray on the side bench.

“Back of the lab has A3 paper, rulers, scissors, glue, colours, and plenty of HB pencils. One person per four to collect the art stuff, don’t all go and crowd the place. I wanna see cartoons, people! Think of how you can make your design fun and engaging for children as young as seven or thereabouts!” I take a pause to catch by breath and survey the room. The students look attentive now.

I allow myself to crack a grin realising I just managed to pass off a poster lesson as fun... well if not fun, more appealing than what the class thought I had in store for them “Any questions?”

A single hand was cautiously raised, and I gestured to the attached boy in response. “Yes Kyle?”

“So…. U not really mad bro?” The question was not entirely unexpected, Kyle was grinning ear to ear as he had his hand raised, and he often took pride in announcing that ‘he’s from the internet’ after all.

I don’t bother answering Kyle with anything more than a smile and a roll of my eyes, I think the class are giddy enough without getting into a maymay slinging match “ok, so no genuine questions then? Hop to it!”

The hour slipped away far quicker than I would have liked. There were some really striking designs being produced. The tried and tested ‘emotive cartoon face drawn on a ball’ was used an awful lot to represent particles, but there’s no point reinventing the wheel, especially when the presentation is so neat. I sighted, realising that I really should have set aside more lessons for this… I could have got some truly awesome displays for my lab from this class.

I then stopped to study Kyle’s work. “Well this is certainly original, Kyle… good use of humour!” Kyle had represented the erratic movement of particles with a multitude of grey, wall eyed, cartoon winged ponies, zigzagging and colliding with each other in flight. The style was minimalistic but adorable! And another fuchsia cartoon pony in the bottom left corner of the sheet had a speech bubble covering all the main points in clear and, concise language… ok, officially impressed.

I stalled my sentence as I came to a confusing realisation… “Kyle, this is… it’s… wait… I’ve seen this before…”

Kyle’s face brightens in time with this exclamation “Oh shit no! You watch the show Mr Lee?”

While I don’t have a problem with swearing, whenever it comes from pupils in the middle of class, it feels like an electric shock. “Kyle! Language!”

There was no doubt, Kyle’s flinch shows the verbal slip up was genuine. He wasn’t testing the boundaries of acceptable conversation with staff. “Sorry sir, it’s just… wow… you just got twenty percent cooler!”

Kyle’s smile had returned, but I could only stare in confusion. “Kyle… I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

After quickly glancing at any nearby pupils, Kyle quietly replies. “Level with me Mr Lee, I promise I won’t spill your spaghetti.”

The utter nonsense coming from Kyle was too much for me, and a bizarre snorting laugh explodes from my body despite my best attempts to contain it. “Kyle! Spaghetti? You’ve lost me I’m afraid.”

As I return Kyle’s poster he nods knowingly “Ok sir, I respect a man who knows how to hide his power level.” This conversation wasn’t going to get any more sensible apparently, time to disengage.

“Kid, whatever you’re taking… it’s not working” I have to shake my head in disbelief, but still can’t remove that grin… as I walked away, my smile fell away into an expression of intense concentration. It came back, that realisation that I’ve seen those ponies before… no, that’s not it… I know more about them than just that. The fuchsia one is a primary teacher, I don’t know how, but it’s not a guess. I know it to be true… How is that? Why is this even bothering me? Why does it feel so important?

*****

“Mr Lee?”

“…Mr Lee?”

“Sir… Sir”

“...Fuck Nuggets!”

I snap to attention as I hear the bell sound… glancing around the room, all eyes are on me. There’s still stationary all over the room, not cool. My timekeeping in lesson is much better than this. “My fault guys.” I apologise, “I’m not going to keep you from your holiday, so I’ll clear up. Have a good one!” the lab empties at a truly breath-taking pace. Surveying the lab, I grab a tray and begin to collect in the posters.

Fifteen minutes later, my lab had been tidied up and the stools were all placed up on the benches. I was in front of the new wall display. The display was still only half done, but still very impressive for an hour’s work. Kyle’s work was still the subject of my focus. It bugged me that it could hold my attention for no readily apparent reason. I’ve seen plenty of well-done display pieces, but this was different… there was significance that was just outside of my reach, blocked off in some seldom used corner of my mind.

“Who the fuck are you?” I muttered to the schoolmare drawing. It was at this point that I realised the absurdity of my attention. I was obsessing over cartoon ponies when it was not only the start of the summer break, but also my twenty fifth birthday!

I grab my bag from under my desk and have a quick check over of essential files, wallet, keys, and phone. All accounted for, time to relax.

Sharon was waiting for me in reception. “Fifteen minutes Carl? What could’ve been so essential?” I roll my eyes at Sharon’s impatience.

“Just leave it Sharon, there are plenty of staff still inside, you don’t have to worry about being locked in.” it felt like I was skipping out on work leaving so soon “don’t you feel it’s a little early to be leaving the site? I don’t see anyone else bolting like us…”

“That’s because they don’t have a metric fuckton of birthday booze to assault” Sharon had circled behind and was pushing me out of the door. “Now get home, and get changed. I’ll see you at eight thirty, outside Fab.”

Eight thirty is an early start, and drinks were not expensive at fab… I’d been down this road with Sharon before, and this would not end well “Um, future me? Hangover incoming. Berry’s organising the birthday again… just thought I’d let you know”

Sharon gives me a dig in the shoulder as she peels away to her car. “Buck up and take it like a man! I’ll see you at eight thirty!”

I reach my own car and sling my bag into the boot before settling into the driver’s seat. Deep breaths… Ok, I can make it through tonight… turning the ignition, I try my best to remember how fun it is hanging out with Sharon. “Focus on the night Carl, not the morning after… it’s gonna be Rad…”



Wait… Rad?



Who the hell says that anymore?..........

Author's Note:

This is my first attempt at a fic, and may require some editing. All constructive criticism is welcome.