Creative Every Day has a theme for March: Stories. I’m going to tell some true stories I’ve been working on and I think it’ll motivate me to get going and do more. The first one:
Terror in the Classroom
The incident gave me the first jolt of pure terror in my classroom. I had a python – Jake the Snake. He’d been in the family for a long time, sometimes living with me and sometimes with my daughter. It boiled down to whoever was sick of buying mice every week and asked the other to take over for a while. It seemed like a great idea to have Jake in the classroom because I was going to be a really cool teacher and what could be cooler than snakes?
So in the corner of my busy classroom, and by that I mean a classroom not just with busy students but also with busy walls, sat Jake the Snake in his terrarium, waiting for his mouse. Every Monday I’d bring a live mouse and during silent reading time, the snake monitors would clean the terrarium, change the water, and send the mouse to his maker. Plus, a group of students could watch Jake catch and eat his prey.
It was imperative that the room be silent because otherwise Jake would be distracted and not eat. You can’t leave a mouse in a snake cage for long because as they become accustomed to each other, the snake fails to eat the mouse and sometimes the mouse will even gnaw on the snake. Really. And then Jake the Snake would become Jake the Snack – which was how some of my weaker spellers already described him.
The fateful Monday arrived.
“Adam, Alex, you’re the snake monitors this week. Time to get busy. And the blue group, it’s your turn to watch Jake eat. Come on up and remember to be perfectly still and silent.”
Alas, it wasn’t destined to be a silent Monday. Before I could act to quiet the kids, Jake acted. The mouse was in the jaws of death, the kids made too much noise and movement; Jake dropped his lunch into the water bowl, lunged after it, and voila! The mouse was again in the jaws of destruction. But, agitated by the commotion, Jake had him crosswise, not head first, and he couldn’t disengage his jaw to drop the mouse and start again.
Crimany, snakes I was ok with but mice gave me the creeps. Think. Alex and Adam were boys; they wouldn’t want to show fear or squeamishness, so they could handle this.
“Blue group, sit down. Boys, one of you is going to have to hold Jake and open his mouth while the other one removes the mouse.”
“Cool dude, that’s awesome.”
They both were excited. And Alex pried open Jake’s jaws while Adam removed the mouse, which then exploded. And there was blood. We – they – got it cleaned up, the day went on, I went home and started to worry.
Alex didn’t really have a family so no problem there, but Adam’s mom was involved. And she was big. Not fat, just really big and solid. Tall, imposing, scary. What if she got upset? What if she started worrying about salmonella? Isn’t that what you could get from handling reptiles? Why did I ever bring Jake to school? Maybe she was scared of snakes and would go to the principal about this irresponsible thing I’d done, exposing her son to illness and snakebite and mouse poisoning. Or talk to other parents who would talk to the principal because every Friday everyone in the room got to touch Jake when the snake monitor carried him around, and salmonella would reach epidemic proportions.
I worked hard at calming myself down since other stupid things I’d done had turned out ok in the end. But the next morning right before class started, the office secretary called to say Adam’s mom had come to see me. My fate was sealed. My first year of teaching would come to an ignominious end.
Adam and his mom entered the room, I greeted them calmly, on the outside at least, and she asked me a question about his writing. So far, safe. I still had a job, but I was waiting for the bomb to drop. And it did, but it was a dud. As we were finishing, she said, “By the way, about the snake yesterday? That was a really cool thing. Adam told me all about it and how exciting it was. Thanks for giving him the experience.” As she exited, somehow, I remained standing.
NOTE: The art journal image is actually one of my former 5th-grade students holding Jake the Snake. Jake now resides with Josh, my daughter Karen’s former boyfriend. Karen and Josh had many reptiles when they lived together, and he was happy to give Jake a home until one of us might want him back.
TRIVIA: A note about the student, Cristina. I had pictures of all the presidents in the back of the room, and one day Cristina put up her hand. “Yes, Cristina?” “Why are the presidents all old white men?” I thought it was a brilliant observation and I keep meaning to stop in at Walmart, where Cristina works while going to college, and ask her if she remembers that remark. Because of course it is no longer true.
