The Back-up Plan Sans J-Lo

My last year of university was overseen by a professor named Jane Norris. She was the English Ed department chair and, from the back, looked like a well-kept woman of 35. From the front, however, she looked like the guy in Indiana Jones who drank out of the wrong Holy Grail. (No one, before or since, has rocked the crypt-keeper look quite like Dr. J.)

Other than giving me a closet horror of aging, Dr. Norris imparted one lesson that stayed with me over the years. “Teaching,” she said, “is so hard because you literally have to rewire your brain. You’re thinking and acting in unfamiliar ways. It takes time for your brain to create new neural pathways to accommodate that. Even if you quit teaching, you’ll never think the same again.”

After one year out of the biz, I find that, while I’ve stopped telling random teenagers to spit out their gum and pull up their pants, Dr. Norris was right. Certain habits of the mind just won’t die. The most difficult to squelch is my mania for back-up plans.

Classroom management, or the ability to keep students from stabbing each other and lighting the desks on fire, requires a kind of worst-case scenario thinking. “If I do X, in what ways can my students subvert, pervert, and otherwise destroy my plan?” Sometimes, the worst they can do is get confused or bored. Other times, you end up with violence, bullying, sex jokes, and angry parent emails. 

Usually, a little forethought is enough to keep you out of serious difficulty, but it’s not a perfect science. There’s always something you can’t account for, like Dante’s irrepressible need to urinate in the trash can during class or Andrew’s sudden urge to chew and swallow half the novel you’ve been reading. Or, speaking of worst-case scenarios, it could be Miguel, who, it turns out, does NOT have a cell phone in his lap but is playing with something of a more personal nature. 

Some days it’s not just one unpredictable individual, but the whole class. I remember one time I was being observed, not only by fellow teachers, but by most of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s curriculum department. The lesson (cooked up by said curriculum department) was titled, “Thinking Like a Reporter” and was delivered during the class that produced the all-time best homework excuse of my career. (The excuse was this: “My brother got shanked yesterday in a gang fight so I was in the hospital all night and didn’t get a chance to do my homework. Can I turn it in tomorrow?”) In that kind of cultural milieu, I really shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened next, but I was.

Me: Today we’re going to practice thinking like a reporter.

Juan [a known gang member]: Why?

Me: Ummm... [It wasn’t my lesson, so I wasn’t really clear on this point either. I just knew the people in the back of the room making notes thought it was a good idea.]

Juan: I don’t like reporters. [There was a general rumble of agreement from the rest of the class.]

Me: Why not?

Isabel [provider of the homework excuse]: Reporters are snitches. They’re worse than cops.

Me: What do you mean?

Gerardo [whose father had recently joined California’s burgeoning prison population]: They go around asking questions that aren’t none of their business. Then they tell stuff to the cops. 

Me: That’s not always true. My mother was a reporter. She isn’t a snitch.

Juan: Well, she better not be coming round here, you know what I’m saying? Or she gets what she deserves. 

Me: Right... um, well, let’s write something then.

So it’s safe to say that my love of back-up plans is a result of long and painful experience. When, rather than if, it all goes wahooney-shaped, it’s comforting to know you’ve thought of at least three different things you can do to circumvent disaster. 

I think that’s why I find our current situation so stressful. Not only do Ruyman and I lack a third string back-up plan, we’re missing any plan. We’re here. We’re working. We’re going to have a baby. Other than that, we’re clueless. 

The main problem hinges on one question. We don’t know how long we’re supposed to be in Tenerife. If our raison d’etre here in Spain is to have a baby, it would make sense if we left after I give birth. It would also make sense to not do anything drastic or long-term like buy a car or rent an apartment, since we’d be flying home in a matter of months. If we’re meant to stay here longer, should we continue to tough it out in Carmen’s house and save money or should we make a break for it and get our own place?

Because we’re religious folk and believe that God takes a personal interest in our lives, Ruyman and I have been praying about the matter. For the moment, the only answer we seem to get is “Wait.” 

In the words of that famous Spaniard Inigo Montoya, I hate waiting.