A/N: December 1991
Shawn hadn't done anything wrong. Well, not as far as Jon knew, anyway. But there was some question about the work he'd been submitting lately.
The quality of his writing varied wildly, on par with no other student in the class. Jon didn't know if it was plagiarism on the better work or faking obtuseness on the worse work, or what. Feeny had always encouraged Jon to take initiative when it came to the students, especially with communicating with their families, so Jon did. He called the number on file for Chet Hunter.
The call was an exercise in futility. Chet couldn't seem to understand why Jon was calling, if Shawn wasn't in trouble, and he didn't have any insights to share about his son, which was the bigger frustration, since Jon was really at a loss in figuring him out. They did end on a high note, more or less ("My boy speaks highly of you, Teach, that's more'n I can say of any other teacher he's had") but also left Jon feeling like he'd wasted his time.
But the next day, Shawn couldn't sit still during the warm up. It wasn't his usual restlessness. He squirmed and winced like there was no comfortable position. Jon was five seconds from calling it out before he remembered the call he'd made, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
A half second later, he backpedaled. Maybe it had nothing to do with Chet. Maybe Shawn had gotten into a fight, or fallen off a skateboard or something. There were a million and one reasons Shawn could be struggling to sit.
Jon couldn't convince himself.
Well, maybe it had nothing to do with Jon or the call he'd made. Maybe Shawn had misbehaved at home. That was a believable possibility, but it didn't make Jon feel any better. And he couldn't watch the little guy suffer for another minute.
"Hunter, come on up here," Jon said, and Shawn instinctively cringed before coming to the front. Jon grabbed his attendance sheets and handed them to Shawn. "Could you run these to the office for me?"
"I didn't finish the warm up."
"That's okay."
Shawn shrugged and headed out.
Jon's mind raced. He was on for teaching the rest of the day—English and math, and an afternoon art activity. His plan had been to talk about how scripts were written, have the students write their own examples, then let them read them aloud in small groups. For math, they were working on fractions. He had the fraction tiles ready to go, along with a worksheet. They were supposed to be painting this afternoon.
Sitting. All day.
Shawn came back into the room and went back to his desk. He hesitated, looking down at the chair, then lowered himself down gingerly, eyes squeezing shut for a second as his weight settled before he took a deep breath, pushed back his hair, and picked up his pencil.
Jon made a snap decision. "Okay, class. Put away your notebooks, we're done with the warmup. When you're done with that, come up to the front and grab a reader." He picked up a reader himself, beginning to look through. "Today we're talking about scripts, so we're going to flip to the story on page, uh... 119, and act it out, then we'll write some of the lines on the board in script format."
The kids came to the front to grab readers—not that they were capable of doing so without erupting into loud chatter—and Jon had them move the desks into a big circle. He assigned parts to a few students, who stood in the center of the circle. He gave Shawn a part that would have him standing for the duration of the story, but didn't have too many lines.
From his desk in the back of the classroom, Feeny looked up at him curiously.
Jon ignored him. He was livid with the old man for not warning him.
After recess, Jon had the kids divide themselves as a group, rather than tiles, into different fractions, and he led the kids through working out problems on the board rather than on a worksheet. He put tape down on the floor, measured the distance, and had them walk a third, or a quarter, or a half of the way across the classroom. It was noisy, but the kids seemed to be more engaged than they ever had been.
During lunch, he picked up some large pieces of butcher paper and set them out on the floor, along with the paints. Kids came back and painted large murals instead of using the small papers he'd planned for, and they knelt or crouched to do it.
A few kids sat between activities, or to work out a problem before putting it on the board, but Shawn never sat. Not once.