Here's Your New Timetable, Sir

The timetable is what I rely on to tell me which class I need to go to and when I need to be there. The other teachers here seemed to have their timetables hardwired into their brains by the end of the first day of school, but I still have to glance at mine every half hour to make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be.

Unfortunately, the English department is probably the most unorganized and oftentimes clueless when it comes to knowing where teachers are supposed to be and when. There hasn't been one day that I haven't been approached by the supervisor telling me that a new timetable had been made for me. This morning, yet another new schedule had been given to me. It had an 11th standard class that I had not taught before. I had only taught up to 9th standard up until now. To make things worse, my new co-teacher, Yogeshbhai, was nowhere to be found. This time, without a co-teacher, I wasn't let off so easily. The head of the English department, Sejalben, told me that I would still have to teach my classes today, with or without Yogeshbhai. I asked her what I should do since I don't know any Gujarati. She just laughed and said "Good luck!" as she walked away.

Couldn't be too bad. I'll just have the students do some reading exercises or pronunciation drills. As I walked towards the 11th standard classroom, my stomach suddenly sank 10 feet. The class was humongous! I walked through the door and tried not to show any of the emotions that were eating away at my insides. They rose to their feet and let out a resounding, "GOOD MORNING, SIR." After telling them to sit down. I walked up and down the aisles with my hands crossed behind my back, asking students to take out their books. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I figured that was a good place to start.

"This class is big!" I said. "How many students are here?"
"88!" replied a few students.

The students were on a unit covering poetry, so after asking many of the students to read verses out loud, I reviewed the concept of rhyming words and rhythm when reading poetry. Taking the advice of some of the other teachers on classroom management, I made 3 boys stand up for the last 20 minutes of class for talking after being given a warning. I hate being the mean teacher.. but I think that it was necessary.

Yogeshbhai arrived to school just after my 11th standard class. Jokingly, I told him that if he decided to play hooky, he should have just gone all the way. We then had a 15 minute conversation on the meaning of the word hooky. Not quite the effect I thought my punchline would have.