RoboNomics

Chapter 1 - 2016

How late am I? Only a minute or maybe two. But my students are already rowdy.

The sounds of children's laughter, boasting, and prattling gossip leak into the beige cinder block hallway. I trot towards my classroom.

An entire universe of social interactions bursts from the room as I enter it for the last time.

I've never been late. In the seven years I've worked at Crescent Street Public School, there hasn't been a single class who has had to wait for me.

I take up my position at the classroom door every morning as third graders file past me. Usually the thought of standing in front of my kids and teaching them gives me secret knots in my stomach. But today my belly is flipping.

Silence falls as I walk up the center aisle that separates the minuscule desks from each other. I look straight ahead, trying to focus on the flat screen mounted behind my desk.

I can't look right at them. Not now. The gems of their small, bright eyes glint at me: onyx and emerald and beryl and amber.

I brush my black bangs out of my eyes. I turn to my desk and look at it. I poke at its built-in screen.

I push my bangs back again and feel my blood pressure spike. After all I've done, I think. The hours after the final bell rings, helping with maintenance of the school network.

I take a deep breath and think about how I can begin. How I can tell my class I'm leaving them.

I look up. Twenty-four eight year olds look back, caught mid-doodle, mid-note, mid-scratch of cheap finish off desk. They prod at math games on the computer monitors buried within the particle board desks.

"Miss? Ms. Anderson?" Natalie calls from the front row.

Her tight black curls bounce as her ebony hand flicks at the end of an arm extended to its maximum length above her head.

"Are we going over geography homework from yesterday?" Her keen eyes lock on mine.

Usually I am thankful for her enthusiasm. The way it sucks up dead air and unanswerable questions.

I look past her as I try to steady the nausea that rolls through my body. The thin InvisiScreen televisions hanging on the walls display colorful artwork made by my students.

How long have I uploaded student projects to those monitors? My entire short career.

Outside, late September sun breaks through the white, overcast sky. It throws the shadows made by the vertical blinds against the electronic displays. The bite of fluorescent lights fade in the sun.

"I won't be taking up any more homework with you, boys and girls." I look back at them.

A surprised, joyful mutter of "what" comes from more than one corner of the classroom.

I clear bile from my throat.

"In fact," I explain as I brush bangs out of my eyes. "I won't be doing any schoolwork with you anymore."

At this admission I hear the echo of a hissing "yes" from the back of the rows of desks. Probably Ajay, one of my challenges whose mother sends him to school each day with a half-liter of cola in his lunch bag.

Wincing, I charge on. No time to rebuke him now.

"I'm sorry I couldn't let you know before. But I'm no longer your teacher. Beginning today, you'll have a new teacher."

#

What I don't tell my class is that I can stay in my classroom if I want. When I arrive at school that morning, I throw my lunch bag in the staff room fridge like I have every day for the past seven years.