What I’m Reading
May
1
When I asked you all to keep your fingers crossed for me yesterday that I didn’t lose any children on my field trip, I REALLY REALLY MEANT IT. And obviously none of you took me seriously and kept your digits entwined because I did lose a kid, for a grand total of 35 minutes. Those 35 horrible minutes are permanently etched into my soul and when I die at the young, young age of 29 from heart failure and people wonder aloud what happened you will all have to silently live with the guilt that you didn’t listen when I asked for a simple fingers crossed.
The trek to the Freedom Trail started out fine. For those of you not up on your Boston tourism trivia, the Freedom Trail is a red line that starts in the Boston Commons downtown and winds its way through the city and over into Charlestown. Sometimes it is an actual red line painted on the sidewalk, sometimes it is laid in brick, and it leads the way to various sites of historical interest such as the site of the Boston Massacre and Sam Adams’ grave. While I have walked this urban trail countless times I have never actually taken the guided tour, mostly because it is embarrassing to walk around among the suits downtown with a guide dressed like a Revolutionary, but also because the trail usually devolves into numerous pit stops for beer and halfway to Charlestown we stumble onto the nearest train home.
Since there was no possibility of beer on this trip anyway I didn’t mind walking around outside on a sunny day with a woman in a bonnet and a bunch of students just glad to be in the city while their classmates were busy eating paste back at school.
I kid. These kids are old enough to know better than to eat paste. They’ve moved on to sniffing Magic Markers.
I learned a lot on the tour that I didn’t know before. For example, did you know that Sam Adams inherited his uncle’s brewery and the beer was so terrible he ran it into the ground? And that when they started the (new) Sam Adams brewery, they discovered they couldn’t put his image on the packaging because poor Sam was so ugly? So they instead put a likeness of Paul Revere on there. Also, did you know that Paul Revere’s midnight ride did not become famous until 80 years after he was dead? Because the ride was really nothing special, he made similar rides all the time, and actually he never even completed that specific ride as he was captured by the Red Coats before he made it to Lexington; someone else finished the trip to warn them of the impending British troops. Also, he never rode through the streets yelling “The British are coming!” because that would have been ridiculous, since at that point we were all still British. It would have been like running through downtown Boston today yelling, “The Americans are coming!”. But he became famous for it because Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about it and “Paul Revere” rhymed with “Listen, children, and you will hear”, and also because Longfellow was in love with Revere’s great-granddaughter and decided to woo her with poetry.
So there’s your mini-U.S. history lesson for the day, I hope you enjoyed it.
Back to the missing child, they had an hour to get lunch and sightsee at Faneuil Hall, a semi-enclosed outdoor shopping area. I made them repeat back to me where and when we were meeting to get back on the bus. At the appointed time, no little Timmy*. Panic did not set in until about 25 minutes in, when my heart started to skip beats at the thought of calling the school to tell them a student was lost in downtown Boston and oh by the way, I will never be returning to school again, thanks. It felt like someone was squeezing at my heart, picturing the little blond, bespectacled child being abducted, even though the only people in Faneuil Hall at noon on a Wednesday were tourists and field trips. I ran the length of the courtyard four or five times, peering into shops and running to see if every tow-headed child was him.
Eventually some other students found him on the way to get on the bus, wandering with a blank face covered with fried dough powdered sugar. He looked wonderingly at the giant crowd of students waiting to board the bus, waiting for HIM so that they could board the bus, and said, “Were you looking for me?”. I managed not to strangle him and hustled him onto the bus, which was by then 35 minutes late and stuck in Red Sox game day traffic. We were late back to school, the bus driver missed two other pick ups he was supposed to do, and all little Timmy could say was, “I forgot.”
Did I mention he also forgot we had a field trip that day, and also forgot to bring a lunch and/or money? And these are the smart kids, people. Be afraid for the future.
*Not his real name. Duh.
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29 Responses to “Kids, If You’re Not Good, Paul Revere Will Come Steal You In The Night”
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Next year, I’m afraid you have no choice but to leash them all together like reindeer on a sleigh. Safety first, right? Also, humiliation.
Two words for the next field trip… Chain Gang!
Yet another example of why children
1. Suck
2. Should be kept on leashes in public.
Wow, I’m impressed with the your feedback of the history lesson. I would have been so busy counting the kids making sure I had all of them that I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention.
Um, I didn’t know any of that stuff about Paul Revere and I feel like a much better person for having read this post.
Also, stupid little Timmy.
Why is history all made up? Just so it sounds good?DUMB!
Next time you have a field trip, leave without him. When you get back and he is crying, tell him “you forgot.”
AND really, you could have left him in the city. It’s a great example of natural selection. Test to see if he could find his way home.
ps. I hope you gave that little punk detention for the distress.
Thanks for the warning. I have a feeling Timmy (not his real name, duh!) may end up in my undergraduate English class.
My suggestion for next year? Make it a pub crawl. For the teachers.
I agree with Kate’s first comment.
Wow. I am impressed that you didn’t strangle him.
In grade school, I had to do a report on Sybil Ludington. She was way cooler than Paul R. but never got that kind of glory — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Ludington
Thanks for passing along the guilt. I can always use more of it.
You crack me up with your witty posts.
I’m glad said child did not go missing for long. (I once lost a camper on the way back from swimming lessons to snack time and it was the longest ten minutes of my life!)
And I appreciated the history lesson. “The Americans are coming!” That made me laugh out loud.
I’m glad Timmy eventually returned, that was nice of him.
I love the historical information, because I had no idea about any of that! Fascinating.
oh my god, how positively terrifying! i’m glad it all ended up okay, even if you didn’t get to stop for beer on the freedom trail.
Thank you for the American History lesson. I learned a lot.
I can barely keep track of my husband. I’ll pass on the field trip supervision. It’s funny how as a kid field trips are the best day of your life, all the while the teachers want to die.
What happened to the buddy system?
Yikes, that is terrifying. I admire your restraint for not killing little Timmy right there in Faneuil Hall.
And I did not know that about Paul Revere! See this is why I need to come visit Boston. So all my Revolutionary War childhood heroes can be destroyed.
Educational! I still want to know why the Freedom Trail is controversial…
SO glad you found that stupid kid. Teenagers.
I like what you did with this post. Just as I was about to be all “shame on you NPW, you bad babysitter!” you taught me about history. And then I liked you for being smart and making me feel smart. Then you vilified Timmy so effectively, I never once at all thought that you might have something to do with his mysterious disappearance.
I guess we’ll know the real story when Law & Order makes a show out of it.
i once worked at a daycamp where the kids were just ROTTEN. 11-14 year old over-priviledged brats. they kept running off and refused to do what we asked them and hit each other, etc. so one day my co-counselor made them all tie their shoelaces to each others, in one long line, so no one could go anywhere without the cooperation of everyone else.
then the head camp people found out and screamed at us for 30 mins for “endangering the children” or something.
So I’m guessing Timmy isn’t one of your quiz bowl geniuses.
Also, please tell me that he borrowed money from some other kid for his fried dough and not that he not only nearly gave you a heart attack but also cost you your own money.
Sadly, Timmy sounds like many of my students who do things like that ALL the time. But man I would have been FREAKING out myself. And writing my letter of resignation….
To make you feel better–my first year teaching I left a kid behind at school while we went on a field trip. Yup. Shining moment for me.
Now I am waiting for Jerry Orbach to show up at our front door.
Timmy… sounds like some of my college students.
So NPW you are right. It does not get better.
I’m so sorry I laughed when I read about this “smart” kid and your panic attack!
I am so sorry. I did NOT cross my fingers. My bad. I’m glad Timmy’s okay, the little jerk.
Reason # 1739 why I shouldn’t be a teacher – I would have bitch-slapped teh powdered sugar right off of Timmy’s face.