Exit Duty

By Robert Runté

Robert is this month’s winner of $530.00 for his story on prioritizing what really matters and understanding points of view.

Bio: Robert Runté is Senior Editor with EssentialEdits.ca. A former professor, he has won three Aurora Awards for his literary criticism and currently reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books. His own fiction has been published over 90 times.

Without further ado, “Exit Duty” by Robert Runté.

Marion stared at the seven sticky notes lined up on the top of the dryer. She’d been about to wash her cardigan and had found the notes when she’d turned out the pockets: three in one, four in the other. But she had absolutely no memory of placing them there; no memory of what had moved her to leave reminders for herself, now that she had found the notes again. Maybe Olsen was right, maybe she was losing it.

Well, he hadn’t actually said she should retire; he had asked if she intended to.

“Jesus, don’t take it the wrong way, Marion. I was just asking if you’ll be back next year. Because I have to turn in my staffing plan by Thursday. Jesus! You’re so defensive lately. Maybe you should retire. Or, you know—get over yourself. Jesus!”

In the old days, principals hadn’t said ‘Jesus!’ quite so freely. They hadn’t been two generations younger than her, either.

She picked up the first sticky again. Check on her. ‘Her’ was singularly unhelpful. Marion had six boys and twenty-three girls in her class; she had no idea which of the twenty-three the note referred to. Evidently, when she had written it, she’d thought she’d remember, that it should have been obvious, but she had nothing.

She must have written the note immediately after exit duty. At the end of every day, she positioned herself at the classroom door and said goodbye to each of her students in turn as they lined up to exit. She’d shake hands with—or fist bump or high five, as appropriate to each personality—every student as they waited their turn to shoot past, back out into the real world. Board policy forbade teachers to ever touch a student, but Marion was old-school and wanted her kids to know she was real. She’d even hug a student if she thought they needed it.

“Never be the first to end a hug,” she told her student teachers. “You never know how long it’s been, what’s going on in their lives, how badly that child needs a hug.” They mostly quoted the rule against touching back to her.

“You can skip the handshake if that makes you uncomfortable,” she told Jasmine, her current practicum student. “Exit duty is about making contact, about letting them know that you see them, that you remember who they are, that you’re interested in how they’re doing.”

Marion would ask each child if they had remembered to take their math, if she’d assigned math homework; or how their art project was coming along; or if their grandma was out of hospital yet; or if they were looking forward to the fishing trip with their dad that weekend. Whatever they needed to hear that day. It wasn’t lost on her that many of them would ‘forget’ their math homework and have to go back to their desk to get it—even though they’d already heard her ask the twelve kids in front of them about the exact same homework—and get back in line for a second high five.

And, as each child came up, Marion would mentally ask herself how each was doing, ask herself what she had observed about that child that day. Because it was too easy for a child to get lost through the cracks if you didn’t hold yourself accountable each and every day. A teacher could get so caught up with the boisterous ones, or the slow learners, or the gifted, or the ones with various special needs, or just teaching to the middle, that you could lose kids. Lose track of where they were and what they needed to get to the next level.

Not on Marion’s watch, though.

Jasmine had taken exit duty a couple of times now, but it had not come naturally to her. It had been perfunctory when she did it, and the kids had sensed that. They had mumbled their goodbyes, glanced over to Marion seated at her desk, and as often as not, suddenly remembered something they had to ask Marion before they left. Jasmine hadn’t noticed.

“We were taught to do an FTBC every three weeks,” Jasmine had said. And then she had spelled out the acronym for Marion, as if Marion might not know what a “Full Test Battery Check” was, might not have kept up with this year’s University jargon. As if FTBC made exit duty redundant.

She’d tried to explain to Jasmine that a lot could happen in three weeks. That a child could miss a single concept and suddenly begin falling irretrievably behind. That it might take months for the problem to show up on tests, by which time the student might have struggled so much as to conclude that they hated Math or Language Arts or whatever. There was often no coming back once they got the idea firmly planted in their heads that they weren’t good at something.

Not that tests meant that much. There was a lot more going on in class than what FTBC tested for. Ought to be more, anyway.

Jasmine had just stared at her, obviously biting back her tongue because Marion’s practicum report would constitute part of the practicum grade. But her expression made it clear what she thought of Marion’s old-fashioned approach to teaching.

Marion had made her do exit duty anyway. Sometimes, some of them got it after they tried it themselves. Got that teaching was about the kids, not about the tests or the IPPs or all the other paperwork you had to fill in, but about flesh and blood human beings who needed to be acknowledged as such.

And sometimes, as she was doing exit duty, Marion would catch herself and suddenly realize she hadn’t seen Robbie read today, that somehow she had skipped over him when Marshall had thrown his pencil at Leah. Or that this was the third day in a row Brittany had seemed withdrawn. That Marion had better make a point of checking on her next class. And then she’d write herself a sticky, because increasingly she couldn’t rely on her memory.

Her attention circled back to the stickies. She seemed to be having trouble keeping focused these days, especially if it wasn’t a topic she wanted to think about. She picked up another, equally uninformative sticky. Haven’t checked on her work for a while. Better spend time tomorrow. Find out how she’s doing.

 Her and she again. The note was longer than usual, as if she had been trying to nail down her thought completely, but it was still too vague to trigger any memory at all.

Of course, the notes could have been there a while. She’d worn that cardigan every day for three weeks, ever since Jasmine had officially started in their class. Marion had felt the need to show solidarity with her students, to give them a little support, after Jasmine’s blunder that first day, so she had kept the cardigan going even though it had gotten a little grungy. The point, really.

At orientation, Marion had gone over what she’d wanted Jasmine to cover, but Jasmine had insisted that as she was majoring as an art teacher, needed to start first thing with art class, so the students could be introduced to her at her best.

“We do art on Friday afternoons,” Marion had explained, but that had set Jasmine off on a rant about how vital art was, that it should be considered equally important with the so-called ‘core subjects’, that she hated that art was always relegated to Friday afternoons just because you couldn’t expect any ‘real’ work out of students last class Friday.

“That’s not why art’s Friday afternoons,” Marion had told her. But Jasmine had crossed her arms and dug in her heels, her body language making it clear that here was a hill on which she was prepared to die. Gave Marion a little hope, actually. A little passion could go a long way in teaching. If it was actually Jasmine feeling those things, not just her echoing Dr. Rahnowski, the Education Faculty advisor for the art majors. Marion had heard Rahnowski going on about it often enough. But could be Jasmine too.

Marion should probably have explained how things stood; but Marion had still been annoyed by the FTBC thing earlier in the conversation. Jasmine was altogether too sure of herself, her brain already taken up by too many courses in psychometrics and child development and curriculum implementation to be able to learn anything new in practicum. To be able to understand the kids, or where they were coming from. She’d have to take Jasmine down a peg, open up some room in there for new thoughts, if Marion was going to be able to teach her anything. Tough love.

“Okay, Monday morning: art it is, then,” she’d told Marion with a shrug. It would be hard on the kids, but they were resilient. That’s when she’d decided to wear the cardigan straight through Jasmine’s practicum.

On Monday morning, Jasmine had been there bright and early—another hopeful sign—and started setting out her art supplies. Marion had almost laughed out loud when she realized Jasmine was going for papier mâché, but had managed to keep a straight face. Though perhaps not entirely an innocuous expression, because Jasmine had asked at the last minute, “The kids like papier mâché, right?” Marion had just said, “Love it,” and turned away before her smile could give her away.

It had actually been a great lesson, about African masks not just as art, but as theater and culture and keeping one’s stories alive. Jesuobo had practically levitated out of his seat with pride when Jasmine had called upon him to talk about his Benin traditions. Though Jasmine should have cleared that with Jesuobo before the lesson, because a lot of kids did not appreciate being placed on the spot like that. Or being asked to speak on behalf of an entire culture; especially given that Jesuobo’s family were staunchly Christian and might not have approved of other Benin traditions. But Jesuobo had been ecstatic, so Jasmine had gotten away with it and the class had worked pretty well.

Of course, the kids had gotten papier mâché over everything, including themselves, and the lesson had gone forty minutes over just to manage clean up. Jasmine had been a little humbled by that, but she still hadn’t gotten it. She simply assured Marion she’d know to apportion more time for cleanup next lesson.

Marion had told her to go ahead and take first lesson Tuesday to paint the masks, rather than wait another week, so Jasmine had been quite pleased at that. She’d organized the painting into stations, to minimize the collateral damage, and that had almost worked out. Jasmine had made some comment about it being good that the kids had come prepared in their art shirts again, given they got almost as much paint on themselves as on the masks. Clearly, she hadn’t recognized that no one had announced to the kids they were doubling up on art that week.

It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that Jasmine started to get a glimmer she might be missing something important. As the first kids had started to file in, she’d said “Oh, sorry, we’re not doing art again this morning. I started with art class, but I will be teaching you a bunch of different subjects this week.” And they had just looked at her, not understanding why she was telling them that. Finally, Jesuobo volunteered that they had understood that, and it was math next, right?