SOPHIE
The girls and I were just leaving out from lunch, heading towards our next class when I realized that for English we were having a substitute teacher.
Last week...
"Before you leave, I have an important announcement!" All around me, my classmates paused in their packing up to stare up at Mom.
"Next week, I won't be here, as I have to go upstate to attend a conference."
"So, no class?" someone called out.
Mom winced. Or at least, I think she did. I know I did after hearing Britney's question in her rather whiny voice.
"Actually, you will have class. I met with your substitute and he seemed more than happy to teach you for one day."
Now, coming to my classroom door, I only hoped he knew what he was getting into. Otherwise, he'd be in for a very trying fifty minutes.
Stepping into the classroom, we met the eyes of our substitute teacher and offered him a shy smile. He appeared to be six-feet-tall and was elegantly dressed. The girls and I were almost always the first to arrive, which I figured to be a pretty good first impression.
"Hello there," he greeted us in a cultured voice. "And who might you all be?"
"I'm Charlotte," she spoke first.
"Chelsea," she smiled.
"My name is Sophie."
The man reached out to shake each one of our hands. "Glad to know you. I'm Mr. Nielsen and I'll be filling in for Ms. Morgan."
By the time we took our seats and set out our homework and notebook on our desk, many of our chatting classmates had trickled in.
"Good afternoon, students." Everyone stopped talking, turning their attention to Mr. Nielsen. He polished his glasses a few times on his sleeve before placing it back onto his face. "As you know, your teacher could not be here today and asked me to substitute for this fine class."
Oh, boy.
"Let us attend to the first order of business, shall we?" Mr. Nielsen picked up a small notebook from the desk. "When I call your name, please respond accordingly." He paused to read the first name, then smiled in our direction.
"Well, I know that you three are in attendance. John Blair?"
"Here!"
Well, it wasn't hard to mess up roll call, although I saw Mr. Nielsen frowned slightly in Britney's direction. Then again, she had mumbled the word "here" while attempting to fix her lip gloss.
"Right then. I have read the syllabus of this class and reviewed the notes your teacher left for me. As of now, you are covering the grammatical side of the English language, is that correct?"
We all nodded.
"Yes, she wishes for me to cover the seven basic parts of speech today. Could someone name them for me please?"
A few hands raised up, including my own.
"Miss Carson? I saw your hand first."
"Nouns, pronouns verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions are the seven basic parts of speech."
"Well done, Miss Carson. And, may I add, very eloquently stated."
"Now, I'm sure that, being high school students, you are all familiar with this sort of basic grammar, but I'm sure no one would object to us brushing up on it. After all, you all learned the parts of speech when you were much younger, I'm sure."
Turning to the whiteboard, Mr. Nielsen picked up a marker and wrote 'The eagle is flying majestically.'
"A simple sentence, I know. I promise we'll move on to more complicated exercises in a few moments. Miss Fowler, would you please identify the subject of that sentence?"
Britney, who had been reaching for the next cosmetic out of her bag, blinked and stared at the board.
"Uhhhhhhh."
Mr. Nielsen frowned. "The subject, please, Miss Fowler. The noun."
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh."
"Miss Fowler, do you know what a noun is?"
"Uhhh... no?"
"You don't know what a noun is?" Mr. Nielsen sounded stunned.
"Ummmm."
"I see." Mr. Nielsen's tone had become a tad cold. "Kindly pay more attention to me and less to your makeup, Miss Fowler."
Britney pouted, but said nothing. Though once Mr. Nielsen stopped paying attention to her, she'd started applying mascara.
"Are the rest of you familiar with the concept of a noun? Please raise your hands if you are."
Nearly everyone else raised their hands, a few only to remain inconspicuous. Mr. Nielsen, however, was not fooled.
"Mr. Freeman, will you please identify the subject of the sentence?" Mathew Freeman, who had been fingering his ipod, stared at the board and replied, "Uhh, the eagle?"
Mr. Nielsen gave a relieved sigh. "Correct, Mr. Freeman. The word 'eagle' is indeed the subject of the sentence."
Mr. Nielsen's eyes scanned the class and settled on a girl who was tapping at her cell phone. "Would you elaborate as to why the eagle is the subject of the sentence, Miss Harmon?"
The girl (I think her name was Erica) looked up from her phone and answered, "It's a thing."
"Yes, that is correct. As you all should know, a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. In short, any word that can be pluralized. For example, if we were to pluralize the word 'eagle,' it would become what, Mr. Sykes?"
"Eagles."
"Correct. Now, let's try this again, shall we?" Erasing the first sentence, Mr. Nielsen wrote 'The young boy ran' in its place.
"A good way to find the subject of the sentence is to look for an article; words such as 'the' or 'a.' Articles are noun markers; they indicate that a noun is soon to follow. Keeping that in mind, what is the subject of this simple sentence, Miss Fowler?"
"Uhhh, young boy?"
"Which word, young or boy?"
Britney paused, then answered, "Young!"
Mr. Nielsen frowned and Britney immediately got defensive.
"But you said nouns came after articles! 'Young' comes after 'the'!" she protested.
Mr. Nielsen gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.
"Miss Davis, please tell the class what the subject is, what the word 'young' is and explain why."
"Gladly," Chels smiled at the girl, who rolled her eyes in retaliation. "The subject of the sentence is 'boy,' as it is a noun. The word 'young' is an adjective and it modifies the word 'boy.'"
"Thank you, Miss Davis, you are quite correct."
"This is kinda confusing," Britney maintained.
"Yeah. I mean, like you said, nouns are supposed to come after articles, so you can't expect us not to get confused when you put an adjective there first," Wesley added.
"I am confused," Mr. Nielsen answered the boy who had spoken up. "I am confused as to how high school students find basic grammar so difficult."
"Well, this sort of stuff is hard."
"I'll have you know, Mr. Gordon, that my seven-year-old son is in the second grade and is currently learning the exact same principles as you are now. I will also have you know that he can identify parts of speech with little difficulty."
Apparently, being outdone by a second-grader was enough to make the whiners temporarily mute, something our substitute teacher took advantage of.
"Perhaps we should move on to verbs and verb conjugation. First of all, what is the definition of a verb? Yes, Miss Jones?"
Charlotte placed down her hand, then said, "A word that describes an action."
"You are correct. A verb describes an action and can be conjugated into the present tense, the past tense, and the future tense. Let's do a little verb exercise; I will give you a verb and I'd like you to conjugate it for me. For example, today I ran, tomorrow I will run, yesterday I ran. Sophie, would you please start us off? Your word is 'decide.'
"Today I decide, tomorrow I will decide, yesterday I decided."
"Well done. Miss Fowler, look lively now. Your word is 'work.'
"Um, today I work, tomorrow I will work, and, um, yesterday I worked?" Britney spoke slowly, as though she were unsure of herself.
"Yes, Miss Fowler, you are correct." Mr. Nielsen sounded relieved.
"Alright!"
"Indeed. Miss Acosta, your word is 'forbid.'"
"Okay. Um, today I forbid..." She trailed off a bit, before resuming with, "Tomorrow I will forbid."
"Almost done. Yesterday I what..., Miss Acosta?"
"Yesterday I forbidded!"
"I... beg your pardon?"
"Yesterday I forbidded," Martha repeated, sounding proud of herself.
"No, that is quite incorrect."
"Whaaaa?" Several of my classmates echoed.
"Miss Carson," Mr. Nielsen said, walking to her desk and standing beside her. "Will you conjugate the word 'forbid' into the past tense?" He didn't sound happy.
"The past tense of forbid is forbade," said Calley.
"What? No it isn't!"
"I can assure you, Miss Acosta, that your classmate is correct. Forbade is the answer."
"That doesn't sound right, though!"
"Says who?" I almost asked, but managed to keep my mouth shut.
"I promise you that, to anyone with a basic knowledge of the English language, the word 'forbidded' sounds far worse."
"Who the heck even says 'forbade' anymore?" Britney blurted out. "I've never heard anyone say that before."
"Whether or not you are familiar with the word 'forbade' does not alter the fact that it is the past tense of the word 'forbid.'"
"Yeah, well, if we've never heard the word, how do you expect us to know that?" the boy behind me asked.
"I expected you to have a greater grasp on your native tongue. My goodness, do you honestly mean to tell me that you've never learned how to conjugate words such as 'forbid' or 'mean?'"
"Isn't 'mean' an adjective?"
"It can function as an adjective, yes. However, when used in a sentence such as 'I mean you no harm,' the word 'mean' becomes a verb. Please tell me you know that the past tense of mean is not 'meaned,' Miss Acosta."
"I know that."
"I am glad to hear that," Mr. Nielsen replied dryly.
Walking back to the board, Mr. Nielsen wrote a new sentence: 'I wish you would stop leaving the door open.'
"I will point to a word and when I call on you, tell me what the word is. Miss Fowler, you are first." Mr. Nielsen indicated the word 'wish.'
"Um, is it a ...verb?"
"Are you guessing?"
"Ummm, is it-"
"Never mind. Verb is the correct answer. Mr. Lawson, what part of speech is the word 'open?'"
"Uhhh, is it a verb?"
"Not in this sentence," stated Mr. Nielsen.
"Well, it's not a noun."
"Thank you for pointing that out, Mr. Riggs. Could you please tell the class what the word is and not what it isn't?"
"Uh, I dunno."
"Clearly. Sophie, would you please?"
"It's an adjective; the word is modifying the word 'door.'"
"Thank you, Sophie. Perhaps you'd like to identify this word." He pointed to the word 'would' and I smiled, remembering last week's lesson.
"'Would' is part of a verb phrase. The entire verb phrase is 'would stop.'"
"Well done. Well done indeed."
The sheer relief in Mr. Nielsen's voice earned him a few glares, but he ignored them in favor of polishing his glasses once more.
"I have a question!"
"Yes, Miss Lara?"
"Wouldn't it be 'I wish you would stop leaving the door opened' instead of 'open?'"
"No, Miss Lara. Because open is functioning as an adjective-"
"Wait, can you go over the difference between 'open' and 'opened?' I mean, is 'opened even a word, 'cause I use it all the time!"
Mr. Nielsen was silent, staring at the girl in shock. Taking a deep breath, he managed to say through a tightly clenched jaw, "Take a break, everyone. We'll regroup in precisely five minutes."
Nearly everyone moved seatings and turned chairs to better socialize with their friends. Calley decided to leave Britney to her primping as she took a seat in the desk beside me.
"Do tell, how do you girls sustain yourselves in this class?" Mr. Nielsen walked over to us and leaned against a vacant desk on the first row.
"You know, I'm not sure," I said as the girls giggled.
"My word, I still can't believe half of the statements I've heard so far. Do your mother ever have this much trouble with her students?"
I shook my head. "Not really, they're mostly well behaved."
"You just have to get on their level of communication to better understand them," Charlotte told him.
"Oh, Heaven forbid." Mr. Nielsen sounded genially pained and I guessed he was thinking of his little boy and the kind of teachers he'd encounter in the course of his education.
He was silent for a moment, tapping the fingers of a lower hand on the desk. "Thankfully, your knowledge of English is excellent."
"Thanks," the girls and I smiled.
"You are most welcome. And now, back to the task of educating those who should be somewhat educated."
Sure enough, everyone was trudging back into their assigned desks.
"Welcome back, all. We have roughly twenty minutes or so before class ends, so let us begin again. Now, who can tell me the difference between adjectives and adverbs?"
"Wait, aren't we still talking about verbs?"
"I promise you, adjectives and adverbs correlate to nouns and verbs."
"This is confusing."
Mr. Nielsen ignored the statement and turned to me.
"Once again, Sophie, kindly enlighten your classmates."
"Adjectives modify nouns; they're used for description. Adverbs modify verbs; they describe how or when an action is occurring."
"How do you know that?" Britney demanded.
"The chapter we were supposed to read for homework."
"Oh."
"And now, class, I hope you realize that not doing your assignments leads to a poor performance in class," Mr. Nielsen stated.
"I started to read it, but, like, I didn't understand it. I mean, like, I was, like-"
"Thank you, Miss Haynes, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't foul your language so."
"Whaaa?"
"The word "like" is used to compare one thing to another, not as a replacement for a verb or a pause in a sentence."
"It's, like, a habit."
"One you ought to break, if you expect to be taken seriously."
"Um, my other teachers don't mind me speaking like this."
"I should have guessed. Regardless, please attempt to speak properly in this class."
"I am speaking properly."
"Yeah, we talk like this all the time," Zac spoke up.
"And we don't use words like forbade," said Jay.
"I still think that sounds wrong."
"Enough!" Our substitute was clearly at his wits' end. "I am trying to educate you in an area some of you seem to be sorely lacking in and I would appreciate it if you at least tried to learn today!"
"Why do we gotta learn this, though? It's not like someone's gonna walk up to us on the street and be like, 'I'll give you a million bucks if you can tell me what the subject of a sentence is," said Britney.
"I can assure you that stranger things have happened. Please understand that being able to speak properly means having an idea of how language works. If you know the grammar of a language, you can master it. Mastering a language is how you learn to communicate; communication is a necessity, especially if you hope to get hired by companies or schools."
"Miss Lara, perhaps you'd like to identify each part of speech in this sentence?" Mr. Nielsen pointed at the sentence that still remained on the whiteboard, a reminder of the unfinished assignment before our break.
"Um, 'I' is a noun, 'wish' is a verb, 'you' is a noun-"
"The word 'you' is not a noun. It is a what, Miss Carson?"
"It's a pronoun."
"Yes. A pronoun takes the place of a proper noun like a name or title."
"Oh."
The substitute turned from the board to survey us all. "Out of curiosity, how many of you did your homework for this week. Be honest now; I'll check if I have to!"
I raised my hand, along with many others. The remaining portion of the class half-raised a hand and mumbled "sort of" before lowering them.
"I see. Perhaps it would be best if I ensured you'd learn something here and now. Please open your grammar workbooks and do exercises 3 to 8, please."
A collective groan rose from the class.
"But we only do one or two a week!"
"That's, like, two or three weeks of homework!"
"Indeed it is. Consider this an opportunity to get ahead in your studies. And I'll inform your teacher that I believe that any student who does their assignment poorly should re-do it the following week."
"You're just a sub! You can't do that!"
"I can and I will, Miss Acosta. If you are displeased, then you are free to go. But be warned, if you leave, I shall make a note that you did not complete today's lesson and thus won't receive full credit for your attendance."
To my utmost surprise, no one left. Then again, considering that a few of the class were already in danger of flunking, they probably wanted all the credit they could get.
After I finished my assignment, I spent the rest of the class reading while everyone else worked and Mr. Nielsen wrote out a long report to my mom. A lot of students threw him dirty looks, but he didn't seem to notice.
At the sound of the bell, Mr. Nielsen stood up and addressed us. "You are dismissed. I thank you for allowing me to teach you and I hope that you will put a lot more effort into your school work from here on out. Yes, what is it, Miss Fowler?"
"Uh, the book says that there's a difference between it's with an apostrophe and one without it. How do you know when to use the apostrophe?"
Mr. Nielsen rubbed at his forehead, looking thoroughly worn out.
"If there is ownership of the subject, the apostrophe is needed."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. The word 'it's' with an apostrophe is a contraction, like 'can't' or 'won't.' 'It's' is short for 'it is.'"
"Ohhh. Okay."
"Any other questions?" Silence. "Very well then. Good afternoon, everyone."
I stood up and packed my things, waiting for the crowd to leave before I did. Before I departed, I turned to my substitute.
"It'll get better," I told him before adding, "It was nice meeting you."
He smiled at me. "Likewise, I enjoyed your company this afternoon, Sophie. You and your friends are all excellent students. Thank you for helping me through this ordeal."
As I left, I wondered if Mr. Nielsen would volunteer to substitute for my class again. Though, he probably would never want to set foot in a high school classroom ever again.