Nicholson Baker - Substitute - Going to School With a Thousand Kids

“Play sports,” said Randy.

Mrs. Fitzgerald nodded. “That’s a healthy redirecting activity.”

“Sit on my horse?” said Anita, who kept eyeing Randy.

“I draw,” said Marjorie.

Mrs. Fitzgerald said, “What’s the end result if I draw, or I walk my dog, or I lay across on my bed for a little while and just relax? Or I do yoga, or slow breathing, or I doodle, or I read or write?”

“It decreases stress?” said Marjorie.

“When I read, how does it decrease stress?” said Mrs. Fitzgerald. “For those of you that love to read, when you get yourself into a good book, how does that decrease stress?”

“You get distracted by it,” Cary said.

“You get distracted by it,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald. “If it’s a good character, or a good plot, it kind of takes you away. When I get done reading, I don’t feel sick, I don’t have a really bad headache, I’m not vomiting in the toilet, I haven’t said something or done something to somebody that I didn’t mean to do. How about when you draw? What do you notice? You get better at it. When you drink, you get better at drinking, because your body gets more dependent on it, and it needs more to get the same feeling. People that practice drinking get very good at it. People that practice their drawing get very good at it. Which very-good-at-it would you like to do? You guys don’t need alcohol. Am I going to feel better about myself if I feel sick? Am I going to feel better about myself if somebody shows me on their phone that they took a video of me doing really stupid things, and now it’s viral?” Alcohol, she said, will not help you fit in at school. “Who are you going to fit in with when you’re acting like an idiot? Other idiots. Is that who you want to fit in with?”

Mrs. Fitzgerald moved on to the dangers of driving while under the influence. “Think about your brain as like an iPad that has too many apps open on it. What happens to your iPad?”

It goes slow.

“It goes real slow. So under the influence of a depressant, my brain goes really slowly, and I have a hard time multitasking.” That’s what led to car accidents, and snowmobile accidents. She wrote “FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME” on the whiteboard and told us about it. “The baby’s born addicted to alcohol,” she said. “It has physical deformities, and/or emotional and mental disabilities.” A boy raised his hand to ask how to spell deformities . “Women aren’t using to hurt their babies, they’re using because they’re addicted to alcohol. They made a personal choice to go down the road of addiction. The alcohol is making the decisions for them.”

It sounded like Mrs. Fitzgerald was a total prohibitionist, but in fact she wasn’t. After about age twenty-four, you could drink. “If we could keep alcohol out of your hands, and out of your bodies, until your prefrontal cortex is fully developed, there wouldn’t be as big an issue with alcohol in our country.”

I walked — faintly querulous, wanting a cold beer — to the next class, which was taught by Mr. Fields. He handed a bag filled with empty candy wrappers to a girl named Paloma, who wore a blue plaid bucket hat. “Would it wake you up if you were to go up to the board and count out how many of M&M wrappers are in here?”

“Probably not,” said Paloma. “The entire class is math.”

He handed the bag to Bobby instead. “There’s no food in there,” Mr. Fields said. “We took the food out and fed it to other people.”

“There’s just two,” said Bobby. He wrote a two next to “M&M” on the board.

He gave the bag to Paloma.

“Is it the hat that makes you so sleepy, or is it something else?” said Mr. Fields.

“I’m stuffy,” said the girl. “Can’t… breathe… through… nose.” She counted out two Fruit Roll-Up wrappers and wrote a two on the board.

Roxanne counted one Three Musketeers wrapper. Whitney counted four Snickers wrappers. Bobby, up again, counted two Milky Way wrappers.

“Mr. Baker, can I leave you in charge of the bag of candy wrappers, so that Paloma doesn’t wake up and start to go through it to see if there’s a piece of candy left in there?”

Then Mr. Fields handed around another plastic bag, this one filled with arithmetic problems on slips of paper. Each student fished out four problems.

“Do you want to pick four as well, Mr. Baker?”

I said that I’d be honored.

“This is all about going over division by five and six,” Mr. Fields said.

Bobby did his problems aloud: ten divided by five is two, thirty-five divided by five is seven, twenty divided by five is four, and eighteen divided by six is three.

Paloma was next. She spread out her four division problems. “I would really love to breathe,” she said. Thirty divided by five is six. Thirty-five divided by five is seven. Forty divided by five is eight. Twenty-four divided by six is four.

“Do you notice anything about these?” Mr. Fields asked.

“Five and six seem to reoccur,” said Paloma.

“Okay, anything else that you notice? Do you have any prime numbers as an answer?”

“I don’t know,” said Paloma.

“She has eight, four, seven, and six, are any of those prime numbers?”

“No,” said Bobby.

“Seven is,” said Mr. Fields.

They went around the class doing simple division.

“And Mr. Baker, what did you get?”

“I got fifteen divided by five equals three,” I said. “Twenty divided by five is four, twelve divided by six is two, and ten divided by five is two.”

“And what do you notice about your answers, if anything?” Mr. Fields said.

“I’ve got a prime number in there, three.”

Mr. Fields tooted a large old-fashioned automobile horn and handed it to me. “Whenever you feel the urge, do that, and that means we have to go around and get another pick-four from people, and see what they remember. Any time you want.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Do a practice one.”

I honked the horn.

“Do it a little louder so that it wakes up Whitney.”

Honk!

Whitney screeched.

“That is loud,” I said.

“Do it often,” said Mr. Fields.

“Don’t do it, it irritates me,” said Whitney.

Mr. Fields shook the bag of candy wrappers. “Probability is the topic here,” he said. “What does probability mean, Jaden, in your own words?”

“The possibility of it getting done?”

“The possibility of getting something done,” said Mr. Fields. He wrote a capital P on the board. “That P just stands for ‘probability.’ Last week the big capital P on the board stood for what measurement, Paloma?”

“That if you put some more letters in there it would be my name,” said Paloma.

“Thank you.”

I honked the horn.

“Hey, okay!” said Mr. Fields. “There we go. Paloma, quickly. Eighteen divided by six?”

“Three.”

“Thirty divided by six?”

“Not five,” said Paloma.

“It is a five!” said Mr. Fields. “Twenty-four divided by six?”

“Gahhh!” said Paloma. “Four.”

“Nice guess,” said Mr. Fields, turning. “Bobby, ten divided by five. Don’t be insulted. You’ve just got to know these things.”

“Five! No. Two.”

“Of course it is,” said Mr. Fields. “You’re just messing with us. All right, Mr. Baker. You should probably go and visit Mrs. Christian.”

“Can I do it?” said Whitney, meaning toot the horn.

“I don’t like giving the students control of this,” said Mr. Fields, hugging the horn. “Chaos is sometimes good, but not today.”

I went downstairs to Team Nile, where Mrs. Christian’s seventh-grade science class was in the midst of a cell biology project. She briefed me on it. “They’ve all picked a system, whether it’s a school, or a factory, or a sports team, and they’re trying to figure out, like, what the nucleus would be in the school, or what the nucleus would be on a sports team.” She pointed out several kids who might need help, warning me that some might not want help. I went over to Gabrielle, who was sitting and thinking her thoughts. She had a packet in front of her about parts of the cell. I didn’t want to interrupt her, but I did anyway. “Can I check in?” I said. “What’s your analogy?”