AIN’T MISBEHAVING!

AIN’T MISBEHAVING!

 

My second semester of the fifth grade we had a student teacher, Miss Pomerantz.  Our “real” teacher, Mr. Dunham, was a strict disciplinarian;   combined with the fact that he was also a good teacher, everyone in his class was always well behaved.

Miss Pomerantz inherited that well behaved class in her semester of student teaching.  I do not remember if Miss Pomerantz was a good teacher or not.  I do remember everyone liked her, especially the boys, as she was very pretty.  If this was eighth grade she would have been “HOT,” but in the fifth grade she was just very pretty. 

With Mr. Dunham monitoring Miss Pomerantz from the back of the room every day, he was not able to evaluate her ability to handle misbehaving students.  Monday of the last week of Miss Pomerantz’s tour as a student teacher, Mr. Dunham was called out of the classroom.  Within five minutes of his leaving, I got into a bit of a tiff with Timmy Keenan.

“Hey, that’s my pencil!”

“So what, I’m not going to hurt it.”

“I want it, give it to me!”

“BOYS!!! Stop that arguing and pay attention!”

Timmy and I stopped talking, but I grabbed for my pencil.

Timmy pushed me.

I pushed him back.

“BOYS!!”

Timmy and I ignored Miss Pomerantz and began to wrestle.  The entire class yelled to us to stop fighting, as everyone liked Miss Pomerantz and did not want her to have to put up with our nonsense.

Timmy and I had each other in headlocks and we were yelling and calling each other names when the very pretty, usually quite timid Miss Pomerantz walked over to our desks, grabbed each one of us by our shirt collars, and ripped us apart.

“Joe…you go sit over there…Timmy you go to the other end.  Any more fighting and you will spend the rest of the day in the principal’s office.

I sulked over to my side of the room, Timmy to the opposite end.  The rest of the class followed us with dagger eyes.

Susan Lynch, a very cute blonde who constantly kept her legs crossed in a defensive posture, whispered to me as I took my seat,

“You are such a jerk…Miss Pomerantz is so nice and you two start a fight?  It’s her last week too!  You should be ashamed of yourself.”

While I was being berated for my misbehaving, Mr. Dunham entered the room. 

Everyone went silent.

“Is everything all right?”

“JOE AND TIMMY WERE FIGHTING!!” The entire class threw us under the bus.

“I separated them; it is all over now, unless you want me to send them to the office.”

“No need for that Miss Pomerantz. This was all a set-up, a test, and you passed with flying colors.  Joe, you and Timmy should join the drama club…nice job of acting.”

The entire class was shocked at first and then they applauded. Timmy and I were no longer despised by everyone.

Well, Susan Lynch whispered to me, “I still think you’re a jerk!”