Before you read: This story is about a teacher and their interactions with different students. Their character is based off of various teachers I’ve had and I’ve met in my life, including my parents. I pull from various personal experiences of various different educators, and place the setting in a fictional school very similar to different schools that exist where I live. Overall, this is a piece of fiction influenced heavily by real world people, places, and events that is very personal to me. I choose to publish this as I write it because it feels like I’m hiding a very vital part of my being by not showing it, and because I have a very different perspective on the behind-the-scenes of education as a profession, as someone who is in a family of generations of teachers. anyways hope you enjoy
Max Divine wakes up at 5 in the morning. The sun is barely rising over the mountains, but he can hear the coffee grind start up outside his bedroom. He stretches, gets out of bed, and goes to take a shower.
He’s ready to leave, with his bag secured over his shoulder and portable coffee mug (full of coffee) in his hand. He thanks the sky for not making it overly windy today, so that the walk to school won’t be that bad, and so that he doesn’t need to wear a windbreaker.
It’s 6:30 when he enters the building. “Morning Christine.” He nods at one of the office workers, who waves in return. He takes the long way to his classroom, stopping by to say hi to Cecily.
“Anything exciting going to be happening today?” She asks as he starts to leave to get ready for the day.
Max shrugs. “Going over all the rules and also what we’ll be reading this year, so getting ready for the ‘why are we reading another Shakespeare book’ groans.”
“See, this is why I teach science. It’s so much more fun.”
“You also light yourself on fire at the end of the year, I don’t exactly get to do that.”
Cecily just laughs, and Max shakes his head and leaves her room. Unlocking his room, the lights flick on and he takes a deep breath. Posters of various books and movies cover the walls, and the large bookcase full of various books in various states of wear sits right next to his desk.
He puts his bag down, takes a dark green marker, and writes ‘Mr. Max Divine’ as big as he can make it on the board. Below that, he puts ‘Queer Club - Mondays during lunch’ below that. On the other side of the board, he puts up the Google Classroom code, as well as a url before walking back to his desk.
Taking out the very, very large stack of syllabi, he double checks that everything is in order and ready to go before relaxing. He checks the clock, thirty minutes before the first period, enough time to triple check everything in depth.
There’s a knock at the door, and Max looks up to see a kid with a backpack standing in the doorframe. “Uh, are you Mr. Divine?” They ask, looking down at their phone.
Max nods. “Indeed, if you’re here for first you can sit wherever you want. What’s your name?”
“Sol.” They say, taking a step into the classroom. “Sol Vicario.”
He nods again. “Well, Sol, you can sit in here until the bell rings, or you can leave your bag in here and go get breakfast, or talk to friends, or whatever.”
Silently, Sol takes a seat right in the middle of the sea of desks, pulls out some earbuds, and closes their eyes.
Max watches Sol for another few moments, then pulls up the mini-form he made last night. He puts it as an assignment, then goes back through everything a third time.
The first bell rings, and he gets ready to start.
Desks slowly are populated by various kids, and Max starts attendance the moment the second bell rings. Then, he stands up and walks to the front of the room.
“Welcome to English 12.” He smiles. “I am Mr. Divine, and yes, that is indeed my last name. Written all pretty on my birth certificate too.” There’s one or two laughs, but mostly everyone looks very tired. “Now it’s time for the worst part of today, the first period teacher monologue, and the reading of the syllabus.”
“So we’ll start with what most teachers might start with, that mess of letters and numbers is the Classroom code. If you need me to read it to you, I can do that too. There’s already a small thing you need to do in there, but it’s not too long, I promise. Just a little form to get to know you guys a little better. And while you do that, I’ll pass out the syllabus to each of you.”
There’s a few groans, as expected. “I know, boring stuff, so I’ll go over it quickly.” He hands a stack to the first person in each row. “There’s only a few rules. One, if I’m doing a lecture, please pay attention. It’s for your education, and you can listen to music when doing your own work. Two, respect is a huge deal here. Respect others, and respect me, and we’ll be just fine. Three, put at least a little effort into everything you turn in. If you’re having issues, come talk to me. I’m here before school, during lunch, and after class. Except on Mondays, when the queer club is here.”
“And now that the big rules lecturing is out of the way, on the back of the syllabus is all the stories we will be reading, as well as when major projects will be started. After every story we will run a Socratic seminar. If you do not enjoy speaking, you can write a personal analysis on part of the story to show you understood some of it.”
Max takes a deep breath. “Alright, in the classroom is that form. There is also something that says its due next week, that is the first actual assignment. You are going to write about an important moment to you, or something that you hold dear. Either a recounting of it, a description of it, how it influenced or influences you, anything. You can even do multiple things, it just needs to be one page.”
There’s more groans, and Max laughs. “Welcome to senior English, everyone!”
I hope you all enjoy, it feels a little awkward, but this is also technically the first day of school :) i really do have ideas for mr. divine, i promise
