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The Grade 9s Rebelled Last Week!

10 April 2020
Rebecca Day Reynolds, English 9; Photo by John Pettit
The Grade 9s rebelled last week. It was local at first, a tiny brush fire on the forest floor of the classroom - nothing that a vigorous stamp, stamp, stamping normally wouldn't extinguish. I frowned at them, thus delivering their short, sharp shock.
            
"Put that away, Ty.”
       
Ty did not put that away.
             
"Ty. We're almost done. Put that away." Spurred by some new anarchic wildness, they all began to caterwaul. A single directive rose above the tumult.
             
"Scented candles! Like this one! Everyone! Go! Get your mom's scented candles!"
             
They fled. Most were successful and returned, raising their plunder aloft, and braying fragrances as some unspoken code of validation.

"'Warm Vanilla Hug'!"
"'Banana Nut Bread'!"
"'Multi-Melon Madness'!"
            
"Haha! Look, guys: 'Essence of Christmas' is still in its box! It's gonna be a re-gift." The chant went up: "Re-GIFT! Re-GIFT!"

Some returned crestfallen. One declared that wine night - a ritual from the old time - had devoured the supply. Another looked ashamed: "I left 'Love Spell' where I found it."
            
Arrayed before me, they made great theatre of their naughtiness. Some danced TikTok-ishly. Others brought their cargo as close to my eyes as they could. All laughed maniacally.
            
"That's it. I'm getting..." I articulated the name of my principal. Their principal. I pressed "Invite." The proclamation was kerosene to the flames of their merriment. Miranda produced matches and threatened to light her candle.
             
The novelty evaporates quickly, but in the early days of delivering course content via Zoom, here's what teachers can expect to encounter. Shenanigans. Inappropriate backgrounds. Parents. Siblings. Noises off. Dogs, cats, reptiles. Surreptitious texting. Blatant texting. Private chats. Nose rings and tattoos that you hoped never existed. Bedrooms.
             
Your pre-class hair check will be recorded, and subsequently, when you try to edit it out, you will lose two-thirds of the recording because you had never asked a student how to do this. You will touch your face, mouth and eyes almost constantly. Teachers who, before the stock market crash, believed that retirement was imminent, will become so distracted by the downward slide of their chins into their crepe-y necks that the thread of their lectures unravel: such lapses will be attributed to age, for what teenager can perceive of vanity beyond youth?

But what you cannot prepare for and what you cannot safeguard against is this: as their faces appear in Brady Bunch thumbnails across your screen, a crash of painful joy will wallop your chest with the velocity of a cartoon locomotive.
             
I guess it is a vocation after all.

Rebecca Day Reynolds, English 9


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