8/8/2025, Thursday
Wordle puzzle, August 8, 2025: 3 vowels and a B. Ms. Mendez is stumped.
For my sub duties today I’m with her and Ms. Leher in the library passing out Chromebook computers for the new school year. My job is guiding students to a bank of electrical outlets where they’re to plug in and turn on their laptops to check for broken screens, faulty keyboards, and dead chargers. By the time they get to me, they’ve already been given these instructions, so there’s not much reason for my presence.
I’m stationed alone near the outlets along the wall, while my colleagues for the day sit at the librarian’s desk. The students come in waves, between which the ladies chat about Albuquerque weather, answer e-mails, and collaborate over Wordle. I overhear their banter and move closer to the conversation, like I’m part of the team.
Ms. Mendez is describing a dangerous man she encountered while stopped at a light along Central at Juan Tabo. She wears her brown hair in a ponytail and dons the uniform of the day, a white La Cerna Bears t-shirt and blue jeans. The man was strolling along the median carrying a homeless-anything-helps sign in one hand and a pickaxe in the other.
“You need to roll up your windows,” instructs Ms. Leher who normally works in the main office handling attendance issues. Her long blond hair is parted down the middle, and it frames her round open face like parted curtains. “You never know…”
“But it’s broiling out there,” Ms. Mendez answers, referencing the recent heat wave. “My car was 110 degrees when I left school yesterday!”
“Then you need to tint your windows,” Ms. Leher again instructs, her hands out to her sides, playing exasperated. Duh! The library is cool this morning, and thoughts of soaring outdoor temp’s make us all shiver. “It’ll save you at least 10 degrees.”
“So then, like, 100 instead of 110?” Ms. Mendez calculates, and they both laugh.
Ms. Mendez’s Wordle puzzle has thrown her - she’s down to two guesses and needs inspiration.
“There’s E, I, U, and B, but I don’t know what else…” she shares in response to my icebreaker – “what are you playing?” Her free NY Times subscription gives her one game per day, and she says she can’t function till she’s found the answer each morning. She and Ms. Leher google for clues. Her husband has joined the game from his workplace across town, and the three of them race for today’s word.
Yesterday, the first day of school, I was a mystery EA. An Education Assistant supports teachers in the classroom and is often attached to individual special needs students, following them around throughout the day. The EA I was covering has been out for an extended leave, so long that no one remembers them. I visited six different teachers during the school day, none of whom knew who I was covering or for which students. My arrival was met with raised eyebrows, but I was welcomed everywhere thanks to my youth, good looks and desire to help out.
It feels wrong to be starting school in early August. “How was your summer?” is a cruel question to ask anyone, let alone a kid, three weeks before Labor Day. Like throwing on the lights and shouting “Good morning!” to a sleeper at 4am. Ms. Gregos (English 9) cleverly avoided this angle as 1st period began. She’s full of energy and ready to take on the world, yet also smooth and experienced, a veteran who easily delegates tasks and ignores sidebar issues that happen constantly. She projected a simple presentation filled with amusing video clips and tons of color as she explained class rules to her group of incoming freshmen and elicited responses to questions about hobbies and interests.
Like a pro she seamlessly worked my odd presence into the day’s lesson, sending me off to handle a freshman’s locker issue. When I got it sorted the student and I both felt good about ourselves.
Ms. Baker (Health 9) was similarly cool and calm during 3rd period, winging it with no script, just photos of her family and pets that she wove into her expectations for the room this semester. Her online class roster was missing, so she’s really not sure who’s even supposed to be in her class. No panic, no problem.
In 4th period, Ms. Vaca (English 11) was also well-prepared. She took a quick survey to gather a list of pop songs with interesting lyrics that the class will analyze during the semester, as part of their composition writing curriculum. She collected enough songs for the first few weeks, weeding out the ones with inappropriate lyrics on the spot, then asked everyone to come up with three adjectives to describe themselves. Somehow everyone wants to be “kind, fun, and creative.” Surprised when she turned to me, I responded “nurturing, fatherly, …and old?” Who even says that, I cringed inwardly, as she smiled my way with a chuckle, before moving on with the rest of her casually-arranged class.
How long did it take these teachers to achieve this level of comfort? It seems they’ve no concerns whatsoever about the behaviors or grades or lesson plans that will certainly challenge them as the year progresses. Their confidence in their own talents is that obvious.
But it’s only the first week of school. Not everything runs according to plan in life. Surely tougher times await.
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Indeed, not everything runs according to plan during the first couple of school days. During morning announcements on Friday, a student reports the “fun fact of the day,” a new addition to the daily news. In a quavering voice trying not to laugh, he announces that “chain saws were once used during childbirth.” Ouch. I’ve not heard that boy on the announcements since then, and the fun facts have become tamer.
Things aren’t running smoothly for some teachers, either, who are seeing tough times already. I spent both 2nd and 5th periods of the first day of the year with Ms. Kim (Chemistry), a newly minted Science Teacher from Korea who speaks three languages, holds a BS and a BA, and may be overqualified for the job. While she has enormous talent and a lot of optimism, though, she’s got little confidence. Her Special Ed Science classes will be a challenge, given the small number of kids, large proportion of classroom troublemakers, and her quiet, formal demeanor. During class she lectured in a small voice from the front of the room, and I tried to insert myself in-between the hard cases in the back, encouraging quiet and moving some to different seats when that didn’t work.
I went back to Ms. Kim’s room today before school when I’d received my library assignment. I felt I owed her an explanation, as though she’s counting on me to help her hold the line. She’s reviewing student IEPs when I arrive – documents that explain student disabilities and their resulting accommodations – and she doesn’t have much time to chat before her classes begin. We commiserate over Cooper, a boy with shoulder-length black and white hair that covers his face. He rides around school on a long board, and she’s concerned he’ll use it as a weapon if confronted by Austin or Connor, two of the class bullies from 2nd period. I agree with her that he needs to stow his board during class.
Mr. Lee teaches 6th period Geometry. He’s Filipino, with dark hair and a slight build, and he’s very chatty. He sat at his desk and devoured a salad while we talked, and within minutes he’d explained his 10-year naturalization journey toward legal residence status and had introduced his family. He speaks English carefully and fluently, with a small accent, and I’ll hear boys making fun of his name and pronunciation in the hallways after class. Childish prejudice, perhaps, delivered from children of color, but prejudice all the same.
He teaches basic-level math to all grades, and as students began arriving for 6th period it turned out many of the sophomores know him from last year. Three girls fawned over him before class began, complimenting his shirt, asking about his summer, wanting selfies together. He smiled agreeably with them until the bell, then switched gears and shooed them to their seats. Two boys asked what felt like aggressive personal questions about his family throughout the shortened period, interrupting his lecture about class expectations. He fielded every comment, nonsense or class-related, and while he tried to maintain professionalism I wonder how long he’ll be able to keep it up. I wanted to grab the boys by their collars and tell them it’s none of their business, or something equally useless in the moment.
Mr. Lee is trying to play along with his cohort of Special Ed students, easygoing with a backbone of authority, but he can’t hide his bias toward law and order, possibly a nod to Asian obedience. To my untrained eye, the kids razz him mercilessly, as they do poor Ms. Kim, but where she’s timid and unsure, he’s sporadically authoritative and aggressive. Within a few minutes he’d assigned the 15 or so kids into one of many seating arrangements to come, forcing several to move away from friends, which resulted in complaints. He shifted between good cop and bad cop, offering apologies for threats of discipline before reacting to the next outburst from one of the room’s troublemakers.
He’s been teaching public school math for 20 years, the last few here at La Cerna. He spent several years in a school district in Arkansas, and I wonder what he had to put up with there. Clearly, Mr. Lee’s been around the block. I’m concerned however that he, like Ms. Kim the beginner, will be undone by the problem students in 6th Period. Rami, Camden, Josiah. Connor, Cooper, Austin. The same kids overlap both of their classrooms. So early into the new school year, but do either of them know what they’re getting into? How long can they keep this up?
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In the library a large group of sophomores is picking up their Chromebooks and textbooks. Armed with computers and 5-pound history texts, they look briefly older than their 15 or 16 years suggest. I approach a student who’s charging up her new laptop and remind her to check for issues.
“I heard the speech,” she says glibly from beneath a high-peaked red felt cap that makes her look like a miniature Gandalf. She doesn’t make eye contact or even look in my direction. I recall she’s been pointed out as someone who suffers from social anxiety.
Still, it’s hard to escape the impression that I’m not really needed.
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7th period is a science class with Mr. Hull. Physically disabled, he uses a cane and a wheelchair and is accompanied by a service dog named Koko in case of a fall. His sight and hearing are both impaired, and while short, he’s very overweight, potentially a side effect of medication. Hull is teaching Physics to a small group of Special Ed kids, for which he’s immensely qualified, with both a BS and MS in the subject and years of Special Ed experience from school districts around the country.
Hull, who’s given name is Daphne but who goes by Dru, acknowledges the students’ special needs during the first class, asking them to confide any important information he’ll need to know and offering empathy from someone who suffers from his own maladies. It’s a common sense approach, one that says both “I hear you” and “been there, done that” simultaneously. The approach is otherwise blunt and direct, and it’s clear Hull will brook little misbehavior. When two students are discovered holding a sidebar conversation out of turn, Hull stops class, stands up, and simply stares at the two kids, silent, calm, and withering. Class remains mostly quiet.
“I know why I’m here,” Hull is saying, without saying it. “What about you?”
What about Mr. Lee, and what about poor Ms. Kim? Do they know why they’re here?
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Between waves of students, I doodle on a sketchpad left behind by a student and read an old copy of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a story about self-discovery and navigating through a strange world. 5-letter words with lots of vowels and a B. Belie, beaux, beaut…The assistant principal assigned to oversee sub scheduling passes through the library and gives me a thumbs up then hands off a couple of donuts to the ladies, first week largesse from the teachers’ lounge. Thanks for your service.
The Wordle puzzle is going unsolved as the morning slips away, and Ms. Mendez is giving up, resigning herself to focus on other work. The routine broken, you can tell she’s upset.
“Imbue!” I suddenly blurt out, and she immediately clocks the correct answer from behind the librarian’s desk.
“Yes!”she exclaims, pumping a fist. “Thanks!”
Redeemed, if only for the day, I look forward with a wary optimism to what’s to come.
As usual, your perspective is original, well said, and important to read. New name for your book: Substitute.....