Education diary: Teacher leaves diary unfinished

This is the final day of a seven-day series that chronicles the lives of fourth graders in a classroom at Helen Jydstrup Elementary School. Reporter Benjamin Grove closely followed the class during the first three months of this school year and has monitored the students' progress since then. The Sun changed the names of the students, their teacher and substitute teachers to protect the children's identities. Names of other teachers are real.

In the final installment, teacher John Pendry has surprising news for his students.

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999

Teacher John Pendry's class is buzzing. Pendry has written on the board: "Crayfish are here."

A UPS truck delivered the little reddish-brown, lobster-like crustaceans this morning.

Pendry put the critters in covered white washtubs, where they swim in a couple of inches of water. Students are eager to get a look at them, but their teacher first puts them to work on today's boardwork.

Amal is wired today. At one point, he leans back in his chair, kicking his feet far above his head and tells Pendry, "Diaper me."

Later Amal shouts out answers and talks with nearby classmates as the class reviews today's boardwork. Pendry slides Amal's chair across the floor with Amal in it, away from the other students. Amal and his classmates laugh.

After lunch, Pendry heads back to his room to put the crayfish on students' desks before they come back in from the playground.

Pendry talks about Amal, who despite several weeks of good behavior is coming off two weeks of his worst.

"He's like a slot machine," Pendry says. "He runs in streaks. He's been really off lately. I don't know what's wrong with him."

Students are excited to see the crayfish awaiting them after lunch.

"They are not here to be teased, tortured or messed with in any way," Pendry warns. "They don't know they are in a classroom. So they are pretty freaked out right now."

Pendry shows the students how to pick up the crayfish without being pinched.

Students take turns holding the crayfish. They examine the crayfish body parts, filling out a worksheet as they go. Pendry tells them to look for an egg pore -- a hole the size of a pinhead -- on the underside of the crayfish to determine if the crayfish are female. Students giggle.

Amal discovers his group has one male and one female crayfish.

"Let's put them in the same tub and make them hump," he says.

Later that night Pendry kills time at the sporting goods store, his part-time, second job. Business is slow tonight.

Pendry is a little nervous. It's possible the School Board -- meeting at the Education Center on Flamingo Avenue -- will approve his promotion, appointing him to assistant principal at another school.

If the board approves his promotion, he would probably start beginning as soon as August.

"They'll call me if there is any news," he says.

The night wears on and Pendry does not get a call about the promotion. He shrugs and says he'll just wait patiently while the paperwork makes its way through the district bureaucracy.

Monday, March 1, 1999

Today students are taking a standardized test called the CBAP test. It's a district test typically administered at the end of the year, but Pendry is giving his students a practice version.

He wants to assess their progress. A four-week vacation is coming up in a few weeks. After that, there are just three months until dismissal in July.

"For the next few months we teach them what they don't know and re-teach the areas they are weak in," Pendry says.

Principal Nadine Nielsen is overseeing recess today, as usual. She has had an interesting last few days.

Workers showed up on Friday to move the school's portable classrooms onto the playground, hoisting them off the blacktop from their spot alongside the school building. They moved the portables to make room for the school's new addition -- a building to house five permanent classrooms -- due for ground-breaking this month.

Nielsen wasn't expecting the workers. She quickly orchestrated an exodus from the portables.

"They (the workers) didn't believe we could do it that fast," Nielsen said. "I said, 'You don't know us very well.' "

Later in the day the students are struggling to pay attention to Pendry. Finally, Pendry raises his voice to the point where students know he's mad. They rarely see him angry, and they become dead quiet.

"You finally pushed the old man," Pendry, who turned 30 in February, tells his class. "You really pushed me today."

Wednesday, March 10, 1999

Today's lesson: symmetry.

Pendry's students splatter tempera paint on a piece of paper, then fold the paper in half. They discover that they get the exact same messy image on both sides of the paper.

Amal finished his symmetrical painting and now cannot take his eyes off other students who troop to the back of the room for their turn. He stands to watch them. He does a little dance at his desk.

At one point as Pendry is teaching at the front of the room, Amal strolls up to his teacher. Pendry stops his lesson in mid-sentence.

"Amal, hey, how's it going, buddy?" Pendry asks, joking with him.

Pendry has found that humor is sometimes more effective than a harsh rebuke. The two begin what seems like a comedy sketch.

Pendry turns Amal around and examines his backside. The class laughs.

"Where is your chair?" Pendry asks.

"Back there," Amal answers, laughing.

"Where is your rear end?"

"Right here."

"OK. Put your rear end back in your chair. It's been nice to see you. Come back anytime."

Before going back to his desk, Amal asks, "Is a thumb a finger?"

Pendry rolls his eyes.

The students finish their spelling test just in time for lunch. On the way to the lunchroom, Pendry predicts that Amal will begin dancing in line. As if on cue, the boy dances as he walks.

Pendry just laughs and shakes his head.

Friday, March 19, 1999

Today is the last day before a four-week vacation for Pendry's class and his students are wired. Not a good day for a fire drill.

But the buzzer sounds at 9:55 a.m. The students calmly line up and head out the door, across the blacktop to the fence at the far end of the playground. The entire school files out. Pendry has his students sit down. After about five minutes, they get the OK sign to go back in.

On the way, Amal and Nick start shoving each other.

Amal tells Pendry, "Nick be pushing me."

"Is pushing," Pendry corrects. "Nick is pushing me. 'Is' is the helping verb."

The students finish up their boardwork.

Pendry refuses to let anything foul his mood today.

"At 3:20, I'm going to go home and lie on my couch and eat potato chips," Pendry tells several of his students who are trying his patience, namely Amal. "That is my plan for the whole vacation."

Ramon says, "You'll explode."

"That's possible," Pendry says, "but it will be worth it."

Pendry later jokes with Karen, who is sipping on an apple juice box.

"What do you think they do with the worms in the apples, do they just squeeze the worms right in?" Pendry asks her. "What about the guy who squeezes the apple juice -- do you think he drinks apple juice?"

Karen blinks at him, looks at her drink box, then smiles at her teacher.

Pendry and his students then correct their boardwork together. They discuss a book they are reading in class, "Charlotte's Web," about a spider that tries to save a pig named Wilbur from the butcher by spinning words like "Some pig" and "terrific" into its web.

Pendry challenges them to come up with other words that might save Wilbur.

They come up with a list: fantastic, awesome, delightful, neat, thoughtful, intelligent.

After lunch, Pendry shows the first half-hour of the movie version of "Charlotte's Web." Pendry wants them to take diligent notes, comparing and contrasting the book and movie.

"Your watching this movie will produce a very long writing assignment," Pendry tells the class as he simultaneously confiscates a small sling shot from Ramon. "I'm not here to entertain you, you are here to learn."

As the video plays, Pendry peppers them with questions about the differences between the two versions.

"They put this part in the movie to make it funny," Pendry explains at one point. "They didn't think there was enough action in the book, so they put in that frog jumping in the coffee thing."

Later in the afternoon, the day grinds to an end as Pendry directs a classroom clean-up. Because Pendry "roves" from classroom to classroom every three weeks, he has to move out of this room.

When Pendry's students return April 19, they will be back in the classroom where their year began. So they have to clean up the room and try to leave it the way they found it.

"You guys are very used to doing the room-cleaning thing," Pendry reminds his students.

Pendry takes the students out to the playground to read during the final moments of the day. Some read, although most are too distracted by the warm weather, the outdoors, and the prospect of a month off from school.

Students return to the classroom for the last five minutes of the day. Pendry tells them to line up and several seconds later the bell rings. With no ceremony, the students clamor out the door.

"Have a good break," Pendry says.

Only Armand lags behind. Pendry has been talking to the boy's parents about holding the student back for another year of fourth grade. He is well behind his peers in most subjects.

Pendry gives the boy some reading assignments, a set of multiplication table flash cards and a book to read during the break.

"Please! No more Mr. Pendry," Armand begs his teacher.

(Pendry never sees Armand again. His family moves to Green Valley during the next few weeks.)

Pendry hustles out the classroom door, locking it behind him and heading for his truck.

"I realize that most people don't get four weeks of vacation this time of year," Pendry had said earlier this afternoon, as he watched Ray and Amal bicker when they were supposed to be reading. "I understand that. But 12 weeks of doing this is a long time."

Thursday, March 25, 1999

Pendry is working at the sporting goods store when assistant superintendent Carla Steinforth calls him. She has good news. The School Board tonight named him an assistant principal.

"I was running around the store screaming," Pendry says a few hours later. "That's an $11,000 pay raise overnight."

Pendry was relieved to hear that he will begin his new job in August.

"They're going to let me finish up the year (at Jydstrup)," Pendry says. "That's good. I want to go out with Amal -- finish up strong."

Monday, April 19, 1999

Teacher John Pendry has a bomb to drop on his class today.

His teaching days are over.

Six days ago, Pendry was sitting at home watching the "Price is Right" on television when assistant superintendent Kay Carl called with news.

"I have your assignment," she told Pendry.

After a yearlong administrative training program, Pendry knew he would be an assistant principal by August. He didn't know where.

Marion Earl Elementary, Carl told him.

Pendry was excited. Earl has a good reputation as a nice place to work. It's just blocks away from Jydstrup.

Great, Pendry had told Carl.

"Just let me know when I need to check in at Earl this summer."

Carl responded, "I don't think you understand me. They need you there Monday."

Pendry paused. "What Monday?"

One day after the phone call, Pendry is at Earl meeting his new colleagues. Thursday and Friday he settled into his new digs, feeling slightly overwhelmed.

"I've got an office with bare walls, a pile of paperwork and a huge stack of messages -- people I don't even know," Pendry said Friday. "It's a mess."

But that was nothing compared to what he faces today.

Passing the torch

Today is the first day Pendry's students are back at school after a four-week vacation. Today they meet the substitute who will be their teacher for the next three months.

Pendry plans to pass the torch immediately this morning to Jane Patterson, who has been substitute teaching in other classrooms at Jydstrup all year.

Pendry's students know her face and she knows theirs.

It's one minute before the bell rings.

Pendry pauses for a moment, sipping coffee as he stands in the middle of the empty classroom. This is the room where the school year started. For Pendry, it ends here.

"This is going to be interesting," Pendry says. "Let's do it."

They file into the building, then into the classroom. Patterson arrives. The two teachers chat briefly as the students get settled.

Then Patterson stands off to the side of the classroom.

"Today is my first day as the assistant principal at Marion Earl Elementary School," Pendry tells his pupils.

They gaze back at him, confused. Erin furrows her brow.

"They're making me leave now, so I won't be your teacher for the rest of the school year," Pendry says, scanning their faces.

There's a moment of silence. Amal breaks it.

"So now you can be meaner to them than you are to me," the boy says, laughing loudly.

"Yeah, that's right, I won't be able to yell at you anymore, Amal," Pendry says, laughing awkwardly.

Other students also laugh at the outburst. Nasser's giggle rises above the others.

But Ronny sits with his eyes wide and his face drawn. Holly bites her lip. Hannah stares at her teacher. Then she gazes downward at her backpack, which has been sitting on her lap since Pendry first spoke.

Nick asks simply, "Why are you leaving?"

"There's one important thing: I did not choose to go," Pendry answers. "You are on a list, and when they call you, you go."

Orwell, dressed in a neon green athletic outfit, stares at his teacher, expressionless.

"I did not choose to leave you guys," Pendry stresses. "But this is the way it worked out. I'm not happy about it."

Ramon asks if this is Pendry's last day. Pendry explains that Patterson will take over immediately. With that, he introduces the new teacher.

Shannon R. asks, "Can we come and visit you?"

"Sure," Pendry says, explaining that his new school is just down the street.

Nasser slaps his face with both hands, covering his eyes.

"Oh, man!" the boy says.

"If you get fired, will you come back here?" Ray asks, with a big smile.

'It's been great'

It's time to go to music class. Pendry utters a quiet, "It's been great, guys," before the students line up one more time for their teacher.

Before they file out the door, Amal raises his hand.

Pendry pauses, bracing himself.

"Mr. Pendry," he says, rolling his eyes back into his head. "Have you ever tried to look at your eyebrows?"

Pendry laughs a long laugh.

The boy smiles back.

Pendry collects a few hugs.

After the students disappear into music class, Pendry and Patterson discuss the student reactions. Not one tear.

"At this school the students are used to people in their lives leaving them," Patterson said.

"That's sad," Pendry says.

"It's a fact of life at a transient school," Patterson says.

Pendry then gives Patterson a brief history of the school year thus far, telling her what material they have and haven't covered.

He gives Patterson a few quick descriptions of her new pupils.

"Orwell -- really nice kid, snappy dresser, real low (in ability)," Pendry says.

"Ramon reads at like eighth grade level, but he's got a big mouth. You have to squash him.

"Ray is a very nice kid. When he is on his medications, he tries really hard. But he physically can't sit in his seat. He vibrates.

"Amal is going to push you," Pendry says. "He's been really tough since the first grade. He's been awful for me all year."

After a 40-minute briefing, the two teachers pick up the students from music.

Then without ceremony, Pendry slips out of the building, leaving behind the school he has made home, his 28 students and their new teacher.

Back in the classroom, Patterson and the pupils get acquainted.

"It's kind of like a new year," Patterson tells the class. "You get a new teacher and new expectations."

Patterson lays down her classroom rules. She issues her first reprimand.

"Amal, you are not going to talk out in my class," she says. "If you want to talk to me or address the class, you will raise your hand. You are no longer first graders."

The day proceeds without major incident. She moves Ramon and Ray to different parts of the room.

At one point, she stands behind Amal with her hand on his shoulder, teaching that way for several minutes. Amal sits quietly.

Later the boy continues to misbehave and she tells him, "Amal, you will have an audience -- but it won't be your classmates. It will be me, your parents and the principal."

Mad, not sad

During lunch recess, a few students talk about the change that has swept their classroom.

Nick says he misses Pendry.

"He was funny," Nick says. But the boy hardly dwells on it -- he stuffs a fifth Oreo cookie in his mouth and races out onto the playground.

"I'm not sad -- I'm mad," Nasser says, bouncing a basketball hard against a school wall. "I think he's crazy to be a teacher and then a principal. I want him back. I'm going to Marion Earl next year so Mr. Pendry can be my assistant principal."

Molly and Karen giggle when asked about their first impressions of the new teacher.

"We wish we had Mr. Pendry," Molly says. "He was just nice. He didn't give us much homework."

Karen also adds, "He was funny."

Less than a mile away, Pendry takes a walk around his new school. Earl principal Roland Fagan has asked Pendry to make a loop around the grounds every day.

It turns out that Pendry knows the physical education teacher, a member of his college fraternity. They remember each other. Pendry was a senior at Canisius College when the gym teacher was a freshman.

Pendry brought in five dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts today for his new colleagues.

"They're being really nice to me so far," Pendry says.

Earlier in the day teachers had instantly halted their conversation the moment Pendry strolled into the faculty lounge.

"I poured my coffee in silence," he says.

Pendry is in a completely different world. In a week's time he has gone from teacher to administrator. The view is different from this side of the fence.

"They don't trust me yet," Pendry said. "I haven't done anything to earn their trust. That will come."

Pendry's new school is different from Jydstrup in a several ways. Earl's students come from more affluent families; some live in houses. Just 18 percent of Earl students are from low-income families compared to 37 percent at Jydstrup, according to district statistics. Transiency rates are 36 percent at Earl versus 64 percent at Jydstrup.

Pendry is trying to figure out what assistant principals do.

He has to become familiar with two binders a combined 6 inches thick containing the district's regulations. There are rules and procedures for everything from guidelines to teaching special education children to student safety.

"Basically, I have to be able to say, 'I don't know if you can do that or not, but I know where to look."

Pendry will field students who get bounced into the office for misbehaving in class. The Amals of Marion Earl.

He will oversee school library programs, write the monthly parent newsletter, troubleshoot problems with teachers.

Pendry feels overwhelmed but excited to be in his new job.

"I'm just treading water," Pendry says. "I'm hoping I don't get a lung full."

At one point, principal Fagan leaves the school for 15 minutes to run an errand.

"I just realized I'm in charge," Pendry says a few minutes later. "Please let nothing happen during the next 15 minutes."

Pendry's 12-foot-by-12-foot office is sparse. Two desks. One computer. A plant, courtesy of the Jydstrup staff. Pendry took down two Norman Rockwell prints and put up a framed golf poster.

Despite the distractions of the new job, Pendry wonders about his students at Jydstrup.

"I'll check in on them," Pendry says. "I want to know how they are doing."

Back at Jydstrup the final bell for the day sounds and students stream out the door, a blur of 9-year-olds hoisting backpacks over their shoulders for the walk home.

Patterson is in good spirits. She's already getting to know her new students.

This is another transition that this fourth grade class -- students without a fixed classroom, without their own textbooks, without their own teacher -- will survive, she says.

Life goes on. Learning goes on.

"It's just like John (Pendry) said -- his girls are angels, his boys are high maintenance," Patterson says. "But we're going to be OK."

She pauses, glancing around the empty room.

"We'll be fine."

archive