Dona E. Bowens

Lawd! The things I will do to get to Uruguay. Things like agree to do a 3-week sub job with a handful of elementary kids in the SPED class. That’s what they’re calling Special Education nowadays. SPED. Told the sub-coordinator that I had no experience with SPED but I needed the loot so that I can scoot the hell up outta here. OK, I didn’t say that last part, but I was thinking it. Coordinator suggested that I sample the class for a day and see what I thought. Fair enough. Get a sample and see if I could white-knuckle my way through three weeks.

For once I’m at a loss for words. No idea where to begin. That sample day was a pure fiasco wrapped in pandemonium with a sprinkling of chaos. And I’m talking about the staff. See, I was serving as the co-teacher to a head teacher, backed up by an educational aide. Basically 3 adults in the room versus 4 children. Don’t get me wrong, the children were all the way live. But they were only doing what you’d expect from kids in a SPED class. I won’t even go into the kid that only lasted for 1/2 the day during my sample class. He got the boot forever for threatening the Aide with a gun…I hope he gets the help he needs because the kid was already on his third school for the year. The other kids had me frustrated at many times or laughing out loud. The only girl in the class was this cherubic little white child that smelled of cat piss and neglect. When she made a mistake, she’d ball up her chubby little fist and say, “Oh, biscuit!”

“Oh, biscuit” sums up how I felt about my colleagues. Everyday with the Head Teacher reaffirmed for me the need to get the fuck out of here. We’re probably about the same age but this woman did her 50-something years the hard way. I wouldn’t be shocked in the least to see her pop up on one of those “People of Walmart” types of Instagram accounts. Salt and pepper hair that you just know she cuts herself. She chose her clothes because they fit. She spent a lot of time adjusting the elastic straps on her waistband and talking about slimming down from a size 28 to an 18. Listen, I’m an 18 myself but damn it, I’m going to coordinate my Chuck Taylor’s to my fit…believe that.

Anyhoo…Head Teacher was a Trumper of the purest form. I’ve never met one in the wild. I’ve met one or two who voted for him and then changed their ways—or so they proclaim. However, I’ve never met a Trumper still nose deep in the Kool-Aid. Wow. Just wow. So much pathology. There’s nothing that will bring back Head Teacher to her senses. Nothing. I’ve jokingly called it a cult, however, after 3 weeks with Head Teacher, yeah, that shit is definitely a cult. When she busted out the “Biden is a robot and died in 2020” I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore. I didn’t challenge her, I just laughed. Loudly. I may have even slapped my knee. Then I said, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” I don’t know if anyone’s ever laughed at her before, but she got quiet and said, “I’m not saying I believe it.” Bitch! You know you believe that shit.

How does a country come back when a significant portion of your population believes that the former President is a robot? How does a country come back when these same people are in the classroom and teaching the next generation? And praying over the next generation. Yeah, she did that, too. Prayed over one of the kids as she had him in a restraint to calm his outburst. “Jesus doesn’t want you to act like this,” she said. I was so stunned that my brain blanked out for a moment and when I focused again she was saying, “President Trump is trying to make everything better for all of us.”

Oh, biscuit! Oh, motherfucking biscuit, if I could get my shit together by Monday, I’d be outta here faster than shit through a goose. What the hell happened to people? Were y’all this wacky back when I last lived here in the early 2000’s? I don’t recall people being this bonkers. Head Teacher, the Christian that she obviously is, always started at an 11 with the kids. First thing in the morning before the kids were even awake, let alone up to no good, here comes Head Teacher shouting,” SIT DOWN. SHUT UP. DON’T ASK ME FOR ANYTHING. PUT THAT AWAY. EAT YOUR BREAKFAST. PICK UP THAT APPLE. WHO DROPPED THIS PLAY-DOH?” She shouted so much that, of course, the kids stopped taking anything she said seriously. She said “Your test was perfect,” with the same high volume and anger that she would have said, “Go fuck yourself.”

By 9:30 most days my migraine was already raging. I began to lean on and confide in the Aide who should have retired back in 1982. Bless her. I could see the Aide starring in “People of Target” or something like that. Though 68 years old, girlfriend kept them blonde streaks crisp and wore an ankle bracelet over her ankle tattoo. But she spoke like she had a mouth full of marbles and would interrupt my work with the kids to tell me random tales of her life…on repeat. She’d get a story in her head and tell it to me about four times per day. One day it was, “Did I tell you that my doctor asked why I didn’t bring a piss sample?” Two hours later, on the playground. “Hey, did I tell you that my doctor asked why I didn’t bring a piss sample?” Listen, I’m creative, but I can’t make up the piss sample story. By the time she began on the piss story for the fourth time I was like, “Oh, biscuit! Uruguay better be worth this shit…I mean piss.”

Though the Aide and I were united in our loathing of Head Teacher, it was like being allied with a pigeon against a skunk. Neither are my favorite creatures but if I must choose… The Aide did more than was necessary yelling at the kids as well, but she also stuffed their book bags with extra food from breakfast and lunch knowing that most of them might not have enough to eat that night. I watched her work the tangles out of the hair of the little cherubic girl when she showed up for the 3rd day in a row with the same purple scrunchie getting more and more embedded in the her hair. The Aide gave a damn.

Today, was the final day of my teaching career in Akron. I could go on and on about my last three weeks, and one day I will. It was fucking hilarious and fucking frightening. I can go on about my three years in the classroom in America once the trauma has abated a bit. But now, there’s nothing standing between me and my next life except the pesky situation of selling my house and packing…oh, biscuit.