Ford's Day Job

SUMMARY: Dr. Stanford Pines is now a teacher at Gravity Falls High School, him wanting to make a difference in the students' lives. A little insight on how Ford loves to teach.

MAIN CHARACTER: Ford Pines

Ford never knew he would love teaching so much, so after the crash course of helping the kids in Gravity Falls catch up on school work so they could proceed to the next grade for their age he had decided he wanted to stay at the schools to teach.

Every morning by 7:30 he was at the school desk, a coffee mug in hand, ready to start homeroom. He continued to wear his brown trench coat, but like Mabel has decided to wear a different sweater every day. His sweaters of course were made by his great niece, and with a little help from Dipper the designs were full of science puns and such. He ran the homeroom that consisted of his great niece and nephew, George and Pacifica, and about fifteen other students.

Today as he sat at the desk, glancing at the board that had the day's bell-ringer activity, he thought of what he had to plan today. Homeroom was supposed to be about taking attendance and making announcements, he even let the kids do homework and he would go around helping out if they needed it, but he also gave the kids the bell-ringer so it could actually start their day off learning or doing something productive. Usually he has them write what they did the night before, or on some days asks what the strangest thing they've ever seen was, or he'd actually put some math or science questions up. Today he had wrote on the board on what their favorite topic to talk about was.

He smiles at himself, already knowing what Dipper and Mabel were going to write.

Supernatural stuff and glitter.

The warning bell rings just as some of the kids started entering the room, including his family members. Sometimes when he was asked he would drive the kids the school, but for the most part they walked. He does drive them home, since they live together, and he would drop Pacifica and George at Northwest Manor.

"Morning, Grunkle Ford!" both the twins greeted in unison as they took seats in the front. Pacifica and George had followed the twins in the room and they sat next to them. The four got their pencils and paper together, well Dipper a pen as he chewed on it absently.

"How you kids doing this morning?" Ford asks, settling down his coffee.

"Okay," the four replied in unison as they actually finished their work within minutes.

Ford smiles. "Wow… you four have been hanging out together for too long." He laughed as he got up and collected their papers as the final bell rang, some straggling students rushing in.

"You're telling me," Pacifica replies. "I'm starting to see glitter everywhere," she rolls her eyes, but with a smile and she glances at Mabel, Mabel humming in her seat as she looked back with a smile.

"Best friends!" Mabel shouts.

"That's a little much." Pacifica retorts.

"No it's not!" the brunette shouts, making George giggle next to her.

Ford looks at the clock for a moment and greets the class. "Good morning, class!" he greets cheerfully, a big smile on his face. The class greeted back halfheartedly, well, except for the Dipper and Mabel and their friends of course.

"Good morning, Ford." They had greeted back.

Ford had insisted that they just call him by his shortened name of "Stanford". Even though he did have twelve PhDs he didn't want to be called "Dr. Pines". He liked to keep it casual, and even though the class always greets halfheartedly he knows it's because they're tired.

He then picks up the class roster, ready to call off names. Before he began he shut the door that led to the hallway, just as the last straggler ran into it, shuddering the door. The straggler yelped loudly as Ford opens the door, the kid rushing in and taking his seat in the back.

"Late again, Mr. Goodfeller?" Ford asks him, his eyes narrow in disappointment. The kid nods.

Ford then proceeds the attendance sheet, everyone being accounted for, although he marked a tardy for Goodfeller. After he was done he then tells the class the announcements that the school had for the day, all written down on his piece of paper the office had given him.

"So, today the soccer team is meeting to discuss their game plan for Saturday." Ford says as he read from the paper. "And, tomorrow night is the opening premiere of the 'Wizard of Oz' musical." This caused Mabel to squeal with excitement, and it caused Dipper to groan. "That's all for today, so you can take the rest of the time to work on your homework; I'm here to help if you need it. If not, you can talk amongst yourselves." He then goes around and collects the rest of the students' bell-ringer activity.

The class begins talking as Ford sits back at his desk, getting one of the high school science books so he can double check his teaching plan for the day for his science classes. The boy, Goodfeller, then steps up to the desk, looking shy and sheepish.

The kid had pale blonde hair, almost a white, while his eyes were a pale blue color, and his skin nearly looked white as a sheet of paper. He had a book in his hands, a science book, with unfinished homework.

"Hello, Jack," Ford greeted the young man by his first name. "Do you have a question?"

Jack then looks between Ford and the homework he had. "I-I'm having trouble with calculating what the protons are for the chemistry portion of the homework you assigned, Dr. Pines." He stated. Then he mumbles nervously, "I-I mean, Ford."

Ford gingerly takes the book from Jack's hands and his homework. The paper was smudged with erase marks, everything looked very illegible. The old scientist then gets out some of the extra papers he had of the assignment, and puts the clean page on his desk. He then opens up the textbook to the page that talked about it.

"Okay… so, here we have the explanation that the atomic number is equal to the number of protons in the atom." Ford explains as he read mentally what was on the page and condensed it to simpler terms. "With that being said, if hydrogen's atomic number is one, how many protons are there?"

"… uh…" Jack stammers. "O-one?" he guessed.

"Are you certain?" Ford sternly says. "You can't just guess, even if you're wrong you need to be firm with your answers."

"One." Jack says again, this time more confidently.

Ford then gives a smile and adjusts his glasses. "And with that, you are correct." He tells the boy. He goes over the homework again, noting that he didn't put anything with isotopes or less electrons since the students were just learning. Ford then hands back the new page of homework. "Here you go, just come back when you have another question, okay?" the boy nods and walks back to his desk.

The hour went by quickly, Ford mainly helping students with homework when they asked. As the class left the homeroom, Ford goes to the teacher's lounge and gets more coffee. He usually brought his own coffee from home, only because not many people don't like the way he makes it. When Ford made coffee it was twice as strong as many people would make theirs, people saying they could stay up for three days straight while he would mutter saying that was the point. But since a pot was already made he just drank what was there, not really complaining.

After a minute of drinking the coffee he gathers up his items and heads into the science classroom, ready to start his lesson. Every day after homeroom Ford would go to the science classroom and be there for the rest of the day, teaching from biology, microbiology, astronomy, astrology, chemistry, and a bit of physiology.

He taught through all the grades, from ninth to twelfth. Each class he would be very thorough in his explanations and answered whatever questions that needed to be answered. Ford pretty much knew seventy-five percent of the school since the students mainly see him for science classes. After the second day he was able to memorize a lot of their names, some he recognized from his crash course of education before the schools were back up and running.

Whenever someone came up to him with a question, or their own theory on an experiment they were doing, Ford would be ecstatic to help. He would explain in different ways to try to help the questioning student, or put questions in their heads about their experiments. Every class had at least a troubled student, and it wasn't a big surprise after the experience these kids went through in Weirdmageddon, so he would make extra time for them so they can get through their schoolwork, often extending their time with permission from the guidance counselors and the principal.

That night after getting home from the school with the kids, he would grade all his papers in under an hour. The reason why it was so easy because many of the students did extremely decent and it took little effort to grade. He considered teaching his day job and working in his newly rebuilt lab underneath the Mystery Shack was his night job. After him grading everything he would go downstairs and work through the night with his experiments and such, then the next day he'd do it all again.

Even though he exhausts himself daily from his teachings and his work, all in all he was extremely happy making a difference in these young students' lives.