Kindergarten Crisis

           “You’ll never know unless you try.” Those words kept reverberating inside her head as she laid slumped upon the desk.

           Darlene Compton was an accomplished teacher with nearly twenty years of teaching behind her, but when she was asked to take over the school’s kindergarten class, she had no idea what she was walking into.

           Darlene spent most of her career teaching high school students, and when her long-time friend and supervisor asked her to take over Ms. Peterson’s kindergarten class, she tried to argue the point stating that she wasn’t qualified to teach that age group any longer, but her friend kept repeating, “You’ll never know unless you try.” Eventually, Darlene gave in and accepted the position.

           On her first day, Darlene arrived early so she could get the room organized the way she liked it before the students arrived. The office staff had yet to arrive, so the school’s custodian let her in. As she walked through the hallways, it seemed like a very pleasant atmosphere. The walls were painted a bright yellow and the sun beamed through the large window that hung above the vaulted foyer, glistening off the newly polished floors. At that moment, she felt that this would be a restful change from the ignorance of the students she had worked with in the past.

           She was escorted to her room by the custodian. As he unlocked the door, he said, “Good luck,” then walked away. She pushed open the door and walked inside. After finding the light switch, Darlene hit the switch and seconds later, was ready to turn the lights back off again.

           The walls were splattered with paint and other unidentifiable blotches, the student desks were scattered haphazardly around the room, and the sinks had an odor that could only be described as putrid as if an animal crawled inside the drain and died.

           She was ready to pack it in right there and then, but she did not want to disappoint her friend and decided to make the best of it. Just then, there was a knock on the door. As she turned around, a woman in her late twenties approached with an outstretched arm.

           “Welcome to the jungle,” she jested. “I’m Lindsay, Lindsay Wright. You must be the new teacher I heard about. Welcome.”

           “Nice to meet you, Lindsay. I’m Darlene Compton. I think jungle might be an understatement judging by this room.”

           “Yes, these little animals have been known to be a little wild at times. Would you like me to give you a tour before you start?” Lindsay asked.

           “That’s kind of you, thanks.”

           Lindsay showed her the doors where the students come in each morning and where they leave from after the school day ends. She showed her the location of the gymnasium, and then brought her to the staff room where several other teachers had congregated for tea and coffee to give them the energy to take on the day. The last stop was to the office where the principal was already at her desk, so Lindsay made the introduction.

           “Principal Skinner, this is our new teacher, Darlene Compton,” Lindsay said.

           “Ah, yes, Mrs. Compton. It is a pleasure having you with us. You can call me Wanda, at least when the children aren’t around,” she said with a sarcastic tone.

           “It’s nice to meet you Principal Skinner, I mean, Wanda,” Darlene replied.

           “I’m sure you want to get settled in. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me, okay?”

           “Well, now that you mentioned it, there is a foul odor coming from the sinks in the classroom. Can you have someone look at that for me please? Oh, and will I be assigned a key for the classroom door?”

           “Yes, I believe our custodian, Mr. Little has already put in a maintenance request to have it repaired, but I will see if he can do something in the meantime. As far as your key is concerned, our secretary, Ms. Hatfield has your key.”

           The secretary handed over the key and had Darlene sign for it.

           “Thank you,” Darlene said before leaving the office.

           After returning to her classroom, Darlene got to work organizing the desks and straightening up the toys that were scattered about. She then began to go through her class list reading a little about each student. She was surprised at how many students she had with food allergies. She couldn’t recall this many when she was in school. You may have had one or two in the class, but out of the twenty-four students she had to teach, twelve had allergies to various foods.

           Then there were students known to have behavioural problems including a set of identical twin boys that, at the age of four, were known to switch places and pretend to be one another. She thought about how they would be once they reached high school and pictured the two of them swapping girlfriends to see if the girls could tell the difference.

           The custodian knocked on the door and said he was there to look at the sink. She thanked him and went back to her paperwork. The sound of the plunger slurping back-and-forth in the clogged sink distracted her once again, so she decided to go for a walk while he worked.

           Teachers greeted Darlene as she passed their classrooms. The staff seemed very cheerful for a Monday morning. She wondered if they spiked their coffees with something stronger. While walking past the staff room gazing toward the floor as she walked, Darlene ran face-first into a six-foot-tall obstacle. As she looked up, she saw a muscular man in his forties with a coffee stain across his sweater.

           “Did I do that?” Darlene asked. “I am so sorry. I should have been watching where I was going.”

           “Forget about it. I have a change of clothes in my room. By the way, I’m Gary Sunder. I teach grade eight, along with being the basketball coach, track coach, and whatever else they ask me to do.”

           Darlene apologized profusely as she introduced herself. She could feel her face getting hotter and imagined how red it must have looked. As if he had radar built in for spills, the custodian appeared out of nowhere with a mop and bucket to clean up the spilled coffee. He told Darlene that the sink would have to be snaked out because it is jammed up too tight. She thanked him for trying then followed the lead of the other teachers who were preparing for the arrival of the students.

           The bell rang, and a herd of students rushed through the halls. Darlene watched carefully expecting someone to get trampled upon. One-by-one, the students began entering her classroom and removing their jackets and outdoor footwear.

           As she entered the classroom, the children were running around in random circles chasing one another and throwing whatever they could get their hands on, all except for one little blond-haired girl who sat quietly at her desk with her hands crossed upon the desktop.

           Darlene tried to tell them to have a seat and settle down, but her words were drowned out in the madness, so she turned the lights off and on to gather their attention. Once most of them quieted down, she told them to all have a seat at their desks. One boy tried to hide beneath the paint easel, but she spotted him and had him take his seat before she began speaking.

           “Hello class, I am your new teacher, Mrs. Compton,” she began as she printed her name on the blackboard. “I am going to call out everybody’s name, and when you hear your name, I want you to raise your hand so I can get to know you, okay?”

           A few of the students nodded their understanding while others looked aimlessly around the room. She began to call out their names from the class list that was provided to her and checked off each one who was present. One of the boys did not respond when his name was called out several times, so when she finished calling out everyone else’s name, she assumed the only one left was the one who didn’t respond. She went up to the boy and asked if his name was Rodney, but the boy said it wasn’t. Confused, she asked him what his name was, and he told her it was James. She scanned the class list but saw no James.

           Calling down to the office, she explained the situation, and the secretary said that she would take care of it. A few minutes later, one of the teachers that she had met earlier, showed up with the missing student.

           “I believe you have one of my students by mistake. This is Rodney and James is supposed to be in my class. Sorry for the mix-up.”

           Darlene thanked her and asked Rodney to take a seat. In the few moments that she had turned her back to the class, half of them had left their seats and were back to chasing each other around the room.

           She decided to resort to the old saying by Playwright, William Congreve that said, “Music has charms to soothe a savage beast,” and she turned on the CD player. Like magic, the children went from running around to dancing in one spot. It reminded her of the dances by the kids in the “Peanuts” cartoon with Charlie Brown and his friends. Arms and legs were flailing in every direction, but they were having fun and working off some of their energy at the same time. Score one for Mrs. Compton.

           All was going well until the unexpected happened. One of the children fell suddenly to the floor, hitting his head. Surrounding his body was a yellow liquid. One of the other students stood silently by his side with the front of his pants darkened by something wet. Once again, she had to call for the custodian to come in and mop up the mess of urine while trying to keep the rest of the students from walking through it. The twins were oblivious to the mess and were more focused on the toys that were sitting on the other side of the puddle, so they both walked across, grabbed the toys, then walked back through the puddle and across the room, leaving wet footprints behind.

           Darlene realized at that point that she was losing control of the situation, so she herded the students all to the opposite side of the room away from the mess. Checking the boy who had fallen, she saw that he was unharmed, so she pulled paper towel from the dispenser and began to wipe off the bottom of the twins’ shoes. Now, desperately needing to wash her hands, she attempted to reach the sink, but felt the grasp of a child’s arms around her leg. When she looked down, she saw that it was the student that had peed in his pants and felt the moistness soaking into her pantleg. Rushing the boy to the washroom at the front of the classroom, she told him to go inside and change out of his wet clothes while she looked for his change of clothing.

           The custodian showed up and began to mop up the mess while the kids felt it necessary to inspect every move he made. He seemed quite comfortable and unbothered by their actions, so she just yelled out for them to let Mr. Little do his job.

           Before she could locate the clothes, the student walked out of the washroom completely naked. Darlene ran to him, trying her best to block the other students from seeing, then scooted him back into the washroom with his clothes and told him to get dressed then put his wet clothes into the bag when he finished.

           Unable to juggle twenty-three restless students that were itching to run across the freshly mopped floor, and the child in the washroom on her own, Darlene called down to the office once more. This time, she asked if she could get some assistance for the student in the washroom while she took care of the rest of the class. They said someone would be there shortly.

           A few minutes later, the principal herself walked into the room. Almost instantly, the class went silent and still. She did not have to say a single word. She had an aura about her that shed fear in their young minds. Darlene watched in amazement as they all took their seats. Her trance had been broken, however, at the scent of stale urine. As she turned back toward the washroom, her face was mere inches away from the bag of wet clothes that the student held out in front of him. She had the boy wash his hands thoroughly, and after she tied the bag up tightly, and hung them on a coat hook, she washed her own hands. The soap could not fully remove the ammonia smell of the urine, however. It burned away at her nasal cavity like acid.

           Once everything was back in order, the principal excused herself and left the classroom. As soon as the door closed, the students began to act up again, but the door swung back open, and Principal Skinner glared with intensity. The room fell silent once more, but this time, she left the door open and walked away. They remained silent for quite a while until there was another knock. A man introducing himself as Mr. Collins, the music teacher, was there to teach the kids some music. The students cheered with excitement.

           In his arms, Mr. Collins carried a box that he set on the table at the front of the room. He asked to students to each come up one at a time and he handed them each a tambourine. Mr. Collins demonstrated how to use the instrument, then asked the kids to try. Some shook it above their heads while other banged it off the heads of other students. The girls who sat silently earlier was sitting silently once again, unwilling to participate, so Darlene went over to her and asked her to help her understand how to play the tambourine. The girl was reluctant at first, but after Darlene made a pouty face and asked please, the girl agreed to help.

           Soon, the girl was banging it off her hip and hitting it with her hand like she was a natural musician. Mr. Collins then asked them to do what he did, and they followed his lead. When it was time for him to go, the students were all disappointed, and after the door shut, pandemonium hit once again.

           The remainder of the day was a continuation of the stressful morning, and Darlene regretted taking the position. She could not take this day in and day out for the rest of the school year.

           She tried to bribe them with candy, but that just made them more hyper. She put on a movie which seemed to calm them down, but they were not learning anything, so she tried to create educational games for them to play. This seemed to go over well and many of them seemed to catch on quickly, but once the games ended, the hyperactivity increased again and she lost control once again, so nearing the point of defeat, she sat behind her desk and put her head down for a moment. That was when those words began to resonate again, “You’ll never know unless you try.”

           The P.A. system came to life, and she raised her head. It was the closing announcements from the office. The principal gave a rundown of the next days events and told everyone to have a wonderful evening. Darlene got up from her desk and tried her best to wrangle the students into the cubby area where their coats were hanging. After fifteen minutes, they were finally all dressed and ready to go. She stood by the door of the classroom and after the bell rang, she escorted the children to the locations where they were being picked up by bus or car.

           To her surprise, the twins came up and hugged her, followed by every other student in the class. They all said they had a good day and couldn’t wait until they came back the next day. Darlene’s heart was filled with hope at this sudden outpour of love from her students. She didn’t think that she could do it, but now she saw that she could. All she needed to do was try.