The Sign

In one elementary class I found a letter to President Bush printed on large sheets of butcher paper stuck to the wall. It asked him to protect more forests. Students copied it and sent it to him.

Once, during the day I had to yell, “Be quiet!” Later the principal came in to explain how to behave toward a substitute and reminded them of the sign for silence.

So now I know the sign. You hold up your hand with two fingers extended in a V shape and magically, students become quiet. They don’t stay quiet for long, however, and pretty soon your arm starts to go numb from holding it up in that position. If you do that in high school though, some student will say, with a sneering look, “This is high school!”

Sometimes I have a good day. All the students are studious. On those occasions, I feel like I felt when I was a student. I always loved school. I was studious, not disruptive. The disruptive ones were taken away and put in continuation classes. At the time I didn’t wonder where they had gone. Sometimes we would drive by the continuation school and the kids would tell stories about what happened to the lawbreakers inside.

I never dreamed that I would be working with them someday.