In class, we are playing a fun game. It's fun because the children seem to enjoy it incredibly. They are worked up. I am keeping score on the chalkboard. The student who wins the game will get to be traced by me five times on the chalkboard. I do not know why this has become such a great reward to them--that is, getting traced by me on the chalkboard. They simply love to stand on the chalk tray and get traced by me multiple times. I've even bought more chalk colors so that I can trace them with green and purple and orange. It goes without saying that I steer real wide of their groin areas. I don't like my job, but I want to keep my job.
The child with the lowest score, as a punishment, will have to lick the chalkboard and the dirt outside. The child with the lowest score will have to lick the inside of the stainless steel sink I never scrub too clean. That child will have to lick the rubber cement brush. We play the game. They love the game. The game has to do with shouting words while your mouth is full of marshmallows. The point of the game isn't just to have fun. It's to work on pronunciation. It's very hard to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows. It's so hard. But, once you've tried to say words with a mouth full of marshmallows, it's much easier to say the words with nothing in your mouth. We have also played this game with mouths full of raw potatoes, rocks, and balls of tin foil. The children get one point for saying a one-syllable word that someone else understands. They get extra points for extra syllables.
One child says "Toyota" and gets another child to understand the word. I tell the child that I won't give her any points--let alone three points--because that word is a brand. No brands count as points. I tell another child that "internet" doesn't count. These children are mostly six-years old, though we do have one three-year old in the class and one ten-year old. The three-year old is smart and usually helps me teach for about an hour a day. He teaches forensics, and it's marvelous--really terrific and splendid--that he teaches because it gives me some time to myself and to prepare other activities. I do worry, though, that the three-year old can be too exacting.
We also have a ten-year old in the class. This child is not in the class because he's a dolt and got held back. He's in the class because he prefers to be in my class. If he's not in my class--if he's put with another teacher and with kids his age--he throws a fit. He topples desks and messes with carpets and breaks windows with a stick. He's attached to me because he's the son of my wife. I call him "the son of my wife" not because I'm ashamed of him and can't find it in myself to call him my son. It's just that he's my wife's son because she had him with another man. The man is an astronaut. He's been in space and has set his foot on the moon. He's had many people in love with him and send him videos so that he can spend time with them on the space station. On the space station, he has to exercise a lot--especially his legs--because, in zero g, he doesn't have to use his legs at all. "If I were to spend even more time in zero g, and if I weren't to exercise my legs, then my legs would shrivel. The muscles would atrophy," he often says. That's the kind of thing he says. My wife had a child with that man.
The boy tells the other children--and even other adults who will listen--that I'm his dad. He tells just about anyone that he doesn't care for his real dad and that I'm "more of a dad than his real dad will ever be." He often says that from his real dad, he learned "only how not to be a person," while, from me, he's learned how to be a man. I don't know how he's come up with all this. And I do feel guilty that it's so hard for me to call him my son. Instead, I mostly call him "my wife's son" or "Sweet Charlie" because his name is Charlie.
I'm worried what will happen when Sweet Charlie's real dad will visit class next week to give a talk about how the human body decays in space. I would never have invited Sweet Charlie's dad to class, but I couldn't help that he got scheduled, because it was the three-year old who scheduled him for his forensics class.
Last week, the school was closed because of lead pipes, sulfurous dry wall, and Brown Recluse spiders.
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