Feel it still in Well now

Chasing attendance, exam style.
Everyone should have shown up,
all on time,
all ready.
but they don’t.

So there I am,
running around from classroom to classroom,
double checking that the students who have been marked
absent electronically at the beginning of the exam period
are indeed absent.

This is a something I always do during exams,
this physical body check
because teachers make mistakes.
Students slip in tardy,
and teachers tuck them in to desks,
often forgetting to let me know that the prodigal sons have arrived,
so that I go on searching for students who aren’t missing.

One of the worst calls I make from my office
is to ask a parent why the kid isn’t in school
when the “absent” kid is actually sitting in a desk somewhere
with his teacher’s full knowledge.

• “Don’t you people talk to each other?”
  Apparently not.
• I so hate having the school accused of being unprofessional,
  especially when it’s true - and not my fault.

So I scurry down the hallway to check on my last loose end,
Daryl in Mr. Kilvan’s class.
It shocks me not at all to see Daryl sitting in the first row,
hunched over his pencil,
concentrating his whole body on some algebraic puzzle.
He looks glaringly not absent to me as Mr. Kilvan drops a few more notches
into the deep abyss that is my opinion of him.

Kilvan notices me in the doorway with surprise and relief.
I think at first he may apologize for his error,
for making me scurry about looking for non-absent students.
Well, first impressions can prove you an idiot,
and I confess guilt to that in this case.

Kilvan crosses to me, “Oh thank goodness, Miss McTeague, I’m so glad you came down.
I forgot the exam key and I need to run back to my office.
It will only take a moment.
Would you mind…“

He loses a few more notches as I step in and wave him out.
A few heads pop up, note the changing of the guard, and pop down again.
One adult watching to be certain they don’t cheat is as good as another.

Boring work that, by the by.
Watching boys bleeding knowledge on to the pages before them,
well, paint drying is infinitely more exciting.
(My idea of hell, one I visit whenever I can convince the guidance head to use me, is proctoring the four-hour long college entrance exams. It pays well and I need the money, but, arggh, it’s torture. Their minds are fully engaged while mine sits on a proctor imposed shelf and painfully dies.)

Mr. Kilvan has, surprise to me, put on music for the boys to test by.
Kind cool music too.
I like it.
It’s got a great beat.
I could dance to it.

I could really dance to it.

So I sort of do.

First my hands, elbows against my body, I start hand-dancing,
moving my forearms to the right, throwing my fingers out,
then repeating the motion to the left,
in rhythm with the song.

“Ohhh, ohhh, I’m a rebel just for kicks now…“

I start putting my shoulders into it, throw in a little head bob,
nothing dramatic, just a bit of sotto voce choreography.

“I been feeling it since 1966, now…“

A head pops up, an eighth grader smiles,
Another follows, and a giggle ensues.
Not missing a beat, I put my finger to my lips in the universal “ssshhhh” gesture.

A few conspiratorial smiles pass between young test-takers
and their heads pop back down.

I continue my micro-gyrations for a minute or two more
and shush a few more giggles
before Mr. Kilvan returns to thank me and take over his class again.
Heads again pop up to see the exchange and I wave good bye
to my once-captive slightly smirking audience.
We’ve shared a moment of oddity in the middle of an exam day.
Boys love odd.
Middle-aged attendance secretaries do too.

I broke exam protocol.
The parents are right.
I’m not terribly professional, but it doesn’t really bother me.

All my favourite Miss Mack stories at that school,
I start them myself.

Last updated December 18, 2017