Garth Dutton

The Relief Teacher (Part 1) – A Short Story

This is a short story on an environmental theme in two parts. It is called “The Relief Teacher” and it is based on a geography class that went exceptionally well when I was an adult student teacher doing teaching practice as part of my Graduate Diploma of Education in the 1990′s.

Part two will be published tomorrow

The Relief Teacher (Part 1)
© Garth Dutton 2008

Carol approached the classroom where she would be teaching, and it was noisy. Most students were still standing up talking. She walked in, then she said, “Would you all please take your seats, please!”

    “Who are you?” called out one student. “Where’s Mr. Smith?” asked another.

    Carol picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote ‘Miss Jansen’ on the blackboard. She then gestured for the students to be silent. “I am Miss Jansen. I am a relief teacher. You usual teacher, Mr.Smith, is away sick today, so you are having me for your geography lesson today instead. He may be back tomorrow, so I hope you’ll all be well-behaved and co-operative for me. We have a lot to get through in one lesson.”

    A murmur went through the class, and mixed with it, Carol distinctly heard the phrase, “She expects us to work!” She noted the sentiment, but did not visibly respond to it. Instead she said, “Right! Now I believe you have just done a section on the Sahel region of Africa and desertification. Am I correct? A brief description of what you have done, please…”

    Alan, who sat at the right hand side front of the class, at a desk by himself, put up his hand. Carol indicated for him to answer. He said, “I’m Alan,” and he gave a brief, but very good summary, of what had been done. She thanked him.
   
Carol found that she was starting to get the feel of this class. She perceived that Alan might be the type of student who picked up ideas and concepts very quickly, but there were quite a few other students in the class who appeared to not want to be there at all.

Jenny and Alice, who sat a few desks further back from Alan, were busily engaged in whispering to each other.

Carol motioned for them to stop. “If you have anything to say about the topic, please say it to the class. If it is just gossip left over from recess time, leave it until lunch-time!”

Jenny gave a pained smile, and said with a touch of sarcasm. “That topic Alan described gave us all compassion fatigue.”

The students’ attention instantly focused on Carol. How would the relief teacher respond to a remark like that?

Carol replied. “Environmental problems of that scale do cause some people to lose heart. That is why, instead of going straight on with environmental problems in first world countries, we are going to look at our conceptions of the environment generally, in this lesson.” The news did not go down all that well with the class.

One student put up his hand. “Hi, I’m Rob,” he said. “Please Miss Jansen, some of us have done “The Environment” every year since Year 1. This is year 10… And every time it is done, it is done as if we have never heard of the topic before. We’ve had it up to here!” He put his hand under his chin. “Boring!” he remarked, and left it at that.

Carol saw an opening that might make this lesson quite worthwhile. She decided to take a chance with this class. She smiled and said. “Very well, then… How do you think the topic of ‘Environment’ should be taught at Year 10 level?”

There was a momentary silence in the classroom, then a loud murmuring amongst the students.

“Right!” said Carol. “You can have four minutes to discuss it amongst yourselves, but at working level of noise only, please.”

She suddenly thought to herself. “Whoops, I haven’t marked the student roll yet.” The roll book was on her desk, so she opened it.

“Who isn’t here today that is supposed to be?” she asked the class. Most of them ignored the question. Alan, however, scanned the classroom. Then he called out to Alice and Jenny. “Where’s Samantha, and Rita?”

“At the Interschool Basketball Competition, of course,” said Alice to Alan, rather than the teacher. “Don’t you know we are in the quarter-final.”

“Is that all who are away,” said Carol, finding Samantha’s and Rita’s names on the roll, and marking them accordingly.

“Yes!” said Alan, leaning back on his chair. Carol glared at him momentarily. He got the message, and sat properly at his desk.

When the four minutes were up, Carol said. “Right, let’s start the discussion. Who is going to make the first contribution?” There was complete silence in the classroom.

Then Rob spoke, without putting his hand up first. “How can we answer it? We don’t know you well enough to know what kind of answers you expect.”

Carol considered, then wrote at the top of the blackboard,

A murmur went around the class for they really didn’t know how to take what she had written. They lapsed into silence wondering what to do next.

    One student, Tan, who sat at the back of the class, looked like she might have something to say. Carol looked expectantly at her, and said with a smile. “Yes! Did you have something to say to start the discussion?”

    The students’ eyes turned to Tan, who then said hesitatingly. “My name is Tan. People here see all the problems as coming from the Human Environment, not the Natural Environment. But in parts of Asia people have been growing rice for thousands of years. It’s the big timber companies that are clearing the hill and mountain forests, not farmers. It is the loggers’ actions that are causing erosion and damage to farmers’ fields by seasonal droughts and floods in the lowlands.”

    Carol gave her a smile, as well as verbal thanks, and erased the categories OWN ANSWERS – EXPECTED ANSWERS from the board. She replaced those titles with,

Under the first category she wrote ‘forests’ and under the second category she wrote ‘farming land’. Then she said to Tan. “Do you agree with putting them in those categories?” Tan nodded agreement. Carol said. “The particular issue you mentioned will be discussed in considerable detail in term four.”

    Gina, who sat right at the front of the class, near the teacher’s desk, raised her hand a little. Carol indicated for her to speak, and half turned to the board in anticipation of what she was about to say.

The student said, “My name is Gina, and please Miss Jansen, can I be your scribe? So you don’t have to keep turning your back on the class to write on the board.”

    Carol was quite surprised. She was not quite sure what to do. She was relatively new to relief teaching, and had never had that kind of offer of help before.

    “Certainly,” she replied, and handed the chalk to Gina as she came to the blackboard. Then Carol said. “Would you like to tell the class your contribution, Gina, before writing it on the board?”

    “Could I just write it on the board, please, Miss Jansen?”  Carol nodded agreement, and Gina wrote ‘lakes’ under Natural Environment, and ‘dams’ under Human Environment.

    Other students then made their contributions until there was quite a list for each category. All the students now followed Alan’s, Rob’s, Tan’s, and Gina’s lead and introduced themselves by name first, even though they knew that Carol could not hope to learn 24 names in one or two lessons. Carol tried hard to make sure as many students as possible had something to say.

    During this time, Rob had assumed an air of complete detachment from the discussion. Now he leaned back on his chair, put his hands behind his head, and said. “Miss, I’ve got a problem!” The class burst into laughter.

    Carol gestured for them to be quiet, but three or four girls continued whispering and giggling. Carol glared at them, and waited for them to stop. She thought to herself how glad she was that sex education was not one of the topics she taught. She gestured for Rob to continue, but told him to sit properly on his chair.

    Rob said theatrically. “The problem is, of course, with the topic, not my personal life.” He brought his chair down to level again with a bang, gave one loud thump of his fist on the desk, and said loudly. “I give you the problem of… the beach!”

He then assumed an air of complete self-satisfaction, for having thrown a conceptual ‘spanner in the works’.

The class considered in silence. Then Gina spoke. “Surely I’d have to put it in both categories, wouldn’t I, Miss Jansen?”

    Gina looked across at Alan, who took up her point. “Hmmm,” said Alan, with a look that suggested that he was giving the matter deep consideration. Then in a Sherlock Holmes-type voice, he said. “Obviously, a beach is part of the Human Environment during the day when there are people there, and goes back to being part of the Natural Environment at night when everyone has gone home.”

    Con, who had not made any contribution to the discussion so far, said, “In Greece, there are some beaches that are crowded with thousands of tourists in summer, but deserted in winter when it is very cold. So surely, the beach is part of the Human Environment in one season, summer, and goes back to being part of the Natural Environment in winter… oh, and I’m Con, by the way.”

    Jenny was waving her hand in the air, so Carol acknowledged. “I’m called Jenny!” she said. “My brother Rick and I stay with our Dad during school holidays. Last year Dad took us to Disneyland, and on the way back we stopped over for two days in Honolulu. Waikiki Beach there is a man-made beach. It used to be a mangrove swamp, and all the sand was carted there from somewhere else on the island.”
   
“Good point,” said Carol thoughtfully, and then she asked the class. “Could it ever be part of the Natural Environment if it was a man-made feature like that?”

    Alan laughed. “What about a man-made desert then? Try telling a sand dune it can never be a part of the Natural Environment.”

    “I think I’ve got a solution,” Miss Jansen, said Gina. She had written ‘beach’ between the two categories. Carol considered, and borrowed the chalk. Above the word ‘beach’ she wrote the single word ‘Environment’. “Does that solve the problem?” she asked the class.

    “Yes”, said Gina, and others. Carol thanked her.

Tags: author, Environment, garth dutton, geography, Prose, story

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