Pencils, markers, crayons, and scissors be damned.

Some days are just louder than others or maybe it’s only when I’m tired. Standing in the 2nd-grade class on a chilly ass Monday morning. I’m patiently waiting. The kids clamor in and hit the tables with their backpacks, drop the chairs as they pull them off the desks, and chatter incessantly to each other at a nice ear-ringing buzz. I wince with the noise some days more than others. But I wait and watch hoping they are all sitting soon at their desks. “All” being relative.

Finally, it calms down and the morning begins.

The teacher is explaining something, and the class is semi-quiet. She is messing with the tablet on the wall, and I walk around making sure they have opened their workbooks to some assigned page. Bam! someone’s heavy backpack on rollers falls over startling me from behind and all the kids stop and stare at where the noise came from.  The child picks it up expecting it to stand up on its own when it’s top heavy and must be leaned against the desk, bam it falls over again; the plastic handle slamming the floor loudly.  Again, everyone stops to see the source of the noise. Ok enough of this, I lean the thing correctly against the kid’s desk to stop another fall.

They begin to work quietly, and I walk around helping whoever needs it. The teacher is helping another student as well and is busy. I hear a loud snap. A pencil case hits the floor to my left. As usual, the case somehow falls off the kid’s desk and upside down, mind you.  Always upside down. Always.

And thanks to my experience in witnessing hundreds of falling pencil cases in my year here the inevitable will happen. When the kid picks it up without scooping from both sides what will happen?

Everything falls out. And that’s what he does. He grabs it from the top and a zillion things fall out and roll all over the floor because they never have their pencil cases zipped up. Never never never.

Did I say never?

The gangly kid gets down on his knees to pick it all up. But here’s the good part; on this fine morning, it will take way longer than usual.

He decides to organize everything, and I mean everything before putting it all back in the bag.  “What the heck put it all in the bag, let’s go.” I want to say. But I can’t. I smile and move closer in a motion to help him but think better of it hoping he’ll finish quickly and I move to help another child with their assignment.

I still hear him behind my back messing with the pencils and markers and whatever else was in there. He is still on the floor. Ok, I’m going to have to help him, it’s gone on too long, I’m thinking and move toward him. He declines shaking his head at me. Ok fine I guess, it’s just as well, last time I got down on my knees to help pick up pencils on the floor after a previous pencil case crash I nearly threw out my back.

So I look at what is taking so long; he is putting all the colored markers next to each other in neat little rows.  He makes sure all the colors are grouped lighter to darker, then the crayons in another row the same way, then the pencils in another….all the while the teacher is tied up and never notices. The clock is ticking, and class will be over soon. What the heck I’m thinking.

He finally starts putting each marker in his pencil case in a one-by-one fashion in the first zippered inside pocket, then the crayons in zipper pocket # 2. By now I’m getting ready to do something to get the agony over with whether he likes it or not. I know little kids have no sense of time and this is no exception. He doesn’t think a thing about the assignment he is now way behind doing, because the pencil case must be organized today, right now in the middle of everything, learning be damned.

Then the scissors go in, and the pencil sharpener, then he grabs the eraser and drops it, so it bounces away under his desk and now he has to put down his handful of instruments and chase it.

Back on his little knees, he continues, I don’t know whether to be amused or exacerbated. Maybe chalk this up to entertainment this fine noisy morning.

Just when I think he’s done, he looks in his bag and then rearranges what’s inside, the eraser is taken out and put in a different place then the scissors… oh my God. Now I’m ready to say hell with my back get down and pick it up.

I step toward him again and reach, but he shakes his head, he still doesn’t want my help. Ok fine I think, He wants to do it himself. He has an independent streak going today and I’m gonna spare my back. He then finishes and puts it on his desk and now has no idea what the assignment is, and class is ending.

I’m thinking shouldn’t this be put in his take-home log for mom and dad to see? “Child doesn’t do the class assignment so he can rearrange his entire unzippered pencil case on the floor that has over 40 things in it, right in the middle of class.”

 Hmm let’s see, what grade should he get?

“A” for attention to detail: he matches each marker and crayon by color in neat rows.

“A” for organization: he places each item in its rightful place in said bag.

“B” for poor execution when picking up said bag from the floor allowing all contents to spill out.

“C” for poor time mgt: inability to finish tasks on time and declining assistance from the team(me) to help with spilled contents and finish the assignment.

“D” for unfinished work:   ignoring the assignment at all costs to organize said pencil case and doesn’t complete it.

Ok I step away, we have five minutes left of the class and so I walk to the back to check on another child and OMG another pencil case hits the floor, upside down again, unzipped as usual.  oh, please God not another one, before I reach the little girl she grabs it from the bottom up, and what happens? Pencils are everywhere again! They don’t know how to scoop the bag from the bottom of an upside-down case to prevent spillage and its too late…she’s on the floor reaching for markers that are rolling under her chair and another child’s desk, and I’m too late to stop the rolling mess.

Now I’m on my knees, if I don’t help, I might step on the pencils and fly in the air on my ass. There is no workman’s comp and I’m in a country with questionable health care. Hell, no am I going to fall. I scoop it all up and put it in her bag at once. She accepts my help and keeps working.

Then I pull myself off the floor holding onto the child’s desk trying not to look like I can’t get up in a timely fashion. It’s a bitch to get old.

Ok then.

Next time the teacher asks me to teach something I think it will be demonstrating how to pick up a pencil case from the bottom up, “a lesson in dexterity and noise reduction” I’ll call it.  I can even teach English words to go with it like “hands, fingers, pick up and zip up.” Wait that sounded worse than I meant.

Filing out to the next class it dawns on me; why don’t pencil cases have Velcro to close them? Wouldn’t that help since zipping them up seems to be a problem? Like the old people that wear shoes with Velcro straps because they can’t tie their shoes anymore due to arthritic hands? Like me for God’s sake? Won’t that help? Seriously.

I need a marketing degree to save the teacher’s backs and lower frustration.

“Spill-proof pencil cases.” “Always closed no matter how many times they’re dropped”. Get em while they’re hot! 2 for 1. Free for teachers.

Always take Tylenol before class.

Somewhere in Spain