roll call

In my classroom, the arrangement of desks is quite fluid. Despite the lines on the carpet, I can never quite manage straight rows, even aisles, and really, who cares? If I need a chair, I grab one, or I kneel on my knees-- a habit that pains the psyches of my students more than even my joints. "Oh, please," they'll say, half standing, "sit here." That happens less often any more, but not because they're becomes rude, more American. The prime spots for help are all shoved up by my desk.

Originally there was one, a student desk snug at my left. To my mind it looked like an elementary school punishment, but why should I wander instead of beckoning, "come here?" And it turns out, they love it. Now there are five, multiplied as a barnyard, and when they are full I feel like a squat mother hen. It wasn't my doing, this full-house arrangement, just the result of another kid dragging a another desk up one day or another until the perimeter was filled. At least they want help, or they do when they're here.

For the theme of this year is absence and major tardies and the havoc each wreaks. Never, I keep saying. It's never been like this: my attendance has always been fine--as if it's me, personally, and not the kids on my roster. But now nobody ever comes to school.

And right there I'm doing what everyone else does, borrowing the wide brush that paints everyone regardless. Those who are here are always here, nearly perfectly. Those who are not, are not, almost never, it seems like despite grade book contradiction.But the trouble it causes spreads and grows deeper. Nothing ever gets done or quite finished despite all intentions. Schedules are shot. But really, now that the teen parents are out, if I could break up one ill-advised romance, and either steal one set of car keys or put about five-hundred bucks into an aging Camaro, my attendance rate might seriously improve. And I could stop wasting time thinking about getting these tests in and rearranging my lessons and ratting out the skippers to the right assistant principal. Stop dreading the moment I learn of Teen Parents, part two.

Small classes are easy, that much is true. I do not long for days when fourteen people want fifty things at once, when I sit on the floor for want of sanity, not space. But at a certain point, "It's ridiculous!" I repeat to this group, or that one. "This doesn't even feel like a real class anymore," comes the response. Don't I know it. Empty desks are not a luxury, no matter how other teachers covet. Just trust me on this one. Empty desks are a plague.