The Sweatshop- continued from yesterday

(Continued from yesterday...)

      I walked over to the overhead cart and grabbed the water spray bottle. “All, right, who needs it?” I asked the class. Twenty of the twenty-two students raised their sweaty hands. I walked up to BB. “OK, assume the position.” His face flushed bright red, and emitting an odor that vaguely reminded me of an old, smelly locker room/wet dog, he pulled his hair off his forehead. I sprayed four squirts of water from the spray bottle. He lowered his head, exposing the back of his neck. I again squirted four sprays from the bottle. “Next.”

      I spent the next five minutes hosing smelly kids down with the spray bottle, as well as avoiding the smell. Really I couldn’t complain, as at that point my own shirt was sticking to my back as if I had been caught in a downpour. I didn’t exactly smell like a rose either.

      After a few rounds with the spray bottle, the math lesson could finally begin. I sat down at the overhead. “All right, who remembers how to find an equivalent fraction for ¾?” Looking around the room, JA had her hand up, an utter look of despair on her face. IS had her forehead down on her desk. CG had a wet paper towel covering his face, with two eye holes torn out. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead and into my eyebrow. For a class that is usually very, shall we say, verbally active, there wasn’t a sound in the room except for the box fans at high speed.

      I uncapped the overhead marker, and proceeded to revisit multiply the numerator and denominator, writing on the overhead glass with the marker, smearing the writing with my damp arm. Most students followed along, unenthusiastically, on their individual dry erase boards.

      “Let’s try another one.” I wrote a different fraction on the overhead. “Try finding an equivalent fraction for 4/5 on your own.” After a few groans, the students began working. A bead of sweat ran down from my eyebrow and into my eye, the salty drop stinging. I quickly rubbed my eye.

      Suddenly, the quiet class erupted into laughter. I looked up, and noticed every pair of eyes was fixed on me. Without skipping a beat, screaming out in a panicked, desperate voice, CS shouted out, “Guys! Stop laughing or he’ll turn off the fans!” The group instantly stopped laughing.

      Curious as to what I did that caused this comatose group to erupt into laughter, I asked CS, “What is everyone laughing about?”

      With a look of concern on his face, CS replied, “Mr. Working, you have marker on your face.”

      I looked down at my hands and saw the overhead marker had broken, and my hands were completely green. I rushed over to the mirror, and saw my entire left eyelid and eyebrow were green.

      While splashing water into my eye at the sink, I announced, “Third graders, find an equivalent fraction for 2/6 on your whiteboards.”

      Now I know what it feels like to be the manager of a sweatshop.