Who Threw the Pickle?

I will never forget my very first day as a teacher. It was not a typical beginning because I was hired shortly before the end of the school year.? With only two weeks remaining, a science teacher had been offered a job in industry and he needed to begin his new career immediately. I had applied for a science position the very same week that his notice was issued. To my surprise, I was instantly hired to take his place in a ninth-grade physical science classroom.

I met with the teacher and was over joyed to find that he and I shared a rare trait: ?We were both super organizers. All I had to do was follow his detailed lesson plans for the next two weeks. Taking over his class was going to be easy but it wasn’t the classroom experience that I remember vividly on that first day as a teacher. It was those two words that all teachers eventually come to fear and hate: cafeteria duty!

??????????? The first three classes of physical science went by like a charm. My students were well behaved and very receptive to my explanations of Newton’s Laws of motion. It was after my third period class when my real education as a first-year teacher began. The time had arrived to supervise the first lunch period. I had expected to teach my classes alone, after all, my studies in science education and six weeks of practice teaching experience prepared me for the classroom. I was trained to do what teachers do in the classroom but nothing equipped me for the solitary battle of a school cafeteria. Actually, I wasn’t alone. I had about three hundred screaming junior high students to keep me company.

The first lesson that I learned was that kindergarten teachers waste a lot of time instructing their students to walk single file from place to place. I quickly longed for my college days in Animal Science when an unruly heifer could be zapped with an electric prod. I assumed the administration would frown on that technique, so I resorted to the only means at my disposal. I screamed “Get in line!” I don’t have to tell you the success of that method.

I couldn’t line up a few hundred twelve-year-olds. I felt defeated, but I was about to feel much worse.

The cafeteria served raisins. As a science teacher, I saw a nutritious snack made from the dried fruit of a grape. The students saw something entirely different: artillery.

During my agricultural studies, I had often worked with honeybees. The site I witnessed that first day of my teaching career resembled a massive swarm of black killer bees hovering in the cafeteria. The airborne fruit created a dark cloud that appeared to be suspended in the air. I can honestly say that not one raisin was eaten during that lunch period.

Eventually, the bell rang and the students clamored out of the cafeteria and down the hall to their next class, leaving the combat zone empty and silent with the floor covered in hundreds of tiny black dots. I stood in the corner in shock. It was at that moment that the principal walked onto the battlefield and surveyed the carnage. He shoved his hands on his hips, pulled in a deep breath that he slowly released as he shook his head. He turned and left the scene. No words were spoken.

I collected my clipboard and pen and walked to his office, totally aware that I had just experienced the shortest teaching career on record.

In the moments that followed, I wasn’t fired. Actually, I received an apology. This was the very first day that raisins had ever been served in this school, possibly in any school across the nation. He also informed me that I was supposed to have help in the cafeteria but the teacher was not present that day and he forgot to assign a replacement solider.

I admit I felt a little better. After all, these were circumstances beyond my control. No college class or text book can prepare you for cafeteria duty, especially when fruit or any projectile vegetable is served. Eventually, I worked with a veteran teacher who, after a tough day of duty when hamburgers were served, passed on a gem of wisdom. He walked up to me and, with the voice of frustration and created the immortal battle cry for all teachers who are assigned cafeteria duty: “I have a master’s degree and I have to worry about who threw the pickle!”

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