A Lesson For Teacher

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

A Lesson For Teacher

By Plot Roach

Jamie was into her third week of student teaching when her master teacher gave her the job of contacting the parents of ‘problem’ students to call at home. She rolled her eyes and took the assignment, knowing that she would be fighting an uphill battle. If their children did not care what was going on in school, why should the parents be any different? She asked herself as she dialed the first of twenty phone numbers. A few were ‘wrong numbers’, some were disconnected and three were call blocked. Of the few who did answer, the parents made lame excuses as to the performance of their child, blaming ADD, ADHD, or just plain ‘bad genetics’. One blamed the school system itself. And another said that her child was the state’s problem until he turned eighteen. On the last phone call Jamie reached what sounded like an older couple, who sympathized with the school’s views on the absence of their son. “As it turns out, John was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor a month ago. He has maybe a few more months before he dies or is rendered a vegetable.” The boy’s mother said over the phone. “So knowing that he’s got so little time left, we try to let him do as he pleases.”

Jamie hung up the phone and cried. If I was in his place, I would do the same thing, she thought. The next day she reported her answers to her master teacher, a woman who dressed like she came from the pages of a fashion magazine and seemed to have the IQ of the page number she had found her outfit on.

“If you can’t be hard nosed about it and demand that they take more of an interest in the lives of their children, then you won’t make it as a teacher. We need to get bodies in those chairs, and have them all on the same page.”

“You mean ‘the state needs those bodies in the chairs to get paid and will pass everyone along at the same time, whether they are ready for it or not.'” Jamie said. She had read enough articles on the subject and gossiped with enough of the older, tenured teachers to know who loved to touch the hearts of their students and who were just there to collect a paycheck.

“I think I would be making a mistake if I recommended you as a teacher for this district, once you are done with your student teaching program. I suggest that you look for a different career. Maybe one for bleeding hearts.” Her master teacher said.

Jamie cried that night, for herself, for the child whose mind was being eaten alive by cancer, and for the students who were unreachable under the current standard of teaching because no one would take the time to make the subject matter relevant and understandable to them.

The following morning, as she waited for her guidance counselor at her school, she spied a flyer on the wall of the information kiosk in the building.

“Seeking young and ambitious teachers to be part of an upcoming project. Travel. New cultural experiences. Unlike anything on this Earth.”

She copied down the phone number and called once she was done explaining to her counselor why she could not continue to student teach under her current master teacher. The following day she found herself in the office of “Teachers to Go”, the originator of the flyer she had seen. The interview took twenty minutes, and was run by a cheerful woman Jamie could not help but think of as a human squirrel. The woman spoke swiftly and gestured with her hands that appeared almost to move independently of the woman herself. Jamie had felt like her options were few going into the interview, but leaving the room, she felt as though she would have a new lease on life.

She packed her bags, gave a notice to the university she was attending and called her family, telling them of her plans on the road starting her new life. “It’s kind of like ‘Doctors Without Borders, but with teachers.” she explained to her mother. “I’ll call you whenever I can and I’ll send you the pictures and the brochures they gave to me during the interview. I really think that this was something I was meant to do.”

A car came for her the following morning. She sat back, enjoying a drink that one of the counselors had offered to her who would be tagging along on her first assignment, to help her get into the swing of things. Between the lack of sleep the night before (new places always made her nervous), and the rocking motion of the car, she fell into a deep sleep. When she woke and found herself on a cot in a small room. Oh, Crap! She thought. I’ve read about things like this. Now I’m going to be somebody’s sex slave in a third world country or something. She paced the cell until her counselor approached.

“Have a nice sleep?” she asked.

“Where am I? What have you done to me?” Jamie asked.

“We haven’t done anything to you, besides bring you to your first assignment.” The woman explained.

“Where exactly am I?”

“Cirrus 5, in a town called Theazar.”

“Excuse me?” Jamie asked.

“Perhaps it would be better if I showed you.” the woman said and motioned to the wall behind Jamie. Immediately it became transparent, and showed a world with a purple sky and grass that looked more like clumps of feathers than anything Jamie had ever seen in her biology class. As she watched two beings that looked like bipedal seals waddled past the invisible wall.

“This can’t be…”

“It is, and you seemed a good candidate for it. If you are still willing, of course.”

“What do I do?”

“You came to teach them. And teach them you shall.” said her counselor. “You will teach them about what it is like to be human. Let them ask questions and be as honest as possible. You’ll find that unlike the human children that you have had to work with, these beings are eager to learn everything that you have to teach. There is no assigned syllabus. You teach them what they need to know as they need to know it. Everyone learns together and no one gets left behind.”

The counselor lead Jamie out of the small room and lead her to her first class session. It was out in the open, in a type of natural auditorium. Her students were not assigned to her, or came at the call of a bell, but drifted in and out as their own curiosity called them.

“Hello, class.” Jamie said.

“Hello, Teacher.” they said as one.

“What would you like to learn from me today?” she asked. And was overwhelmed by the number of questions the seal people had for her. She answered them as they were asked, and to the best of her ability. As she spoke, she felt her heart lift from the cell it had been imprisoned in by the state school system. She could be herself, teaching what interested her and what they needed to know. Nothing was forced here for the sake of a test score or because ‘that was the way it was always done’. What was spoken of here was easily accepted and of immediate use.

“Teacher,” asked a young pupil in the front, her whiskers twitching with excitement. “Can you tell us about ‘faith’?”

“I do not know how faith is treated in your culture, but I can tell you what I have experienced of it as a human. Keep in mind that faith can mean different things for different humans, but for me…” Jamie paused and took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully. This was going to be a long lesson. One that she would gratefully teach.