We carry the future

 

School bus drivers carry the future.

That’s what they say about us anyway…. so let me tell you about my after school run tonight.

I service an Elementary school in the mornings and afternoons, and go to the same school in the evenings to take home kids in a program called CAFE.  I’m not sure what the acronym stands for, but it’s a federally funded program that functions as, in my cynical view, as a baby sitting program for working parents.  I pick up the kids at 5:20 and usually get them home by 6ish.  It means, for me, an extra couple of hours four days a week, and has lifted me up to Full Time, which means my Health and Vision benefits are funded totally by the School District.  Previously, I paid for some of my benefits out of my earnings, so the increase in hours paid is also an increase in my pay because none of it’s going out to pay a percentage of my benefits.

It’s a sweet deal for me.

It’s also a lot more work for me.  I pick up the kids after they’ve been playing for a few hours, and it was a great effort to make them know that the school bus is NOT a playground and that there are RULES to be obeyed when on the bus.  MY bus. The rules are NOT for me to be a jerk to them; the rules are ALL about their safety.  Students riding a school bus are the safest passengers on the road.  The bus is designed for their safety.  It is piloted by a Professional Driver, whose Prime Directive is to deliver the students Safely.

But, to be safe, the kids HAVE to obey the rules, so part of my job means enforcing the rules.  I am a hardass about the rules; the rules are, again, all about the safe transit of the kids.

They don’t see it that way, not the Elementary School kids (and like as not, not the Middle School kids either).  Both groups need to be managed to ensure their safety.

At first, I let the kids get on board and sit where they pleased, in the front half of the bus.  (if we have an accident, it is my responsibilty to get them safely off the bus, and to do so, I need to be able to quickly accomplish that, and having the kids in the front half of the bus means that much less farther I have to go to get them off.  20-30 kids in an accident scene can be far more than a handful, but as the only adult in the midst of these heathen kids, Oh My God.  The less effort it takes me to keep them safe, the better).  Just letting them get onboard and sit whereever they pleased, after they’d been playing for hours was, not to put too fine a point on it, a disaster.  There was little to no discipline.  Ever driven a bus full of screaming, yelling kids?  It ain’t for the faint of heart.

After the first week of hell on a bus, I began using a tactic I learned in dealing with the heathens at my last Elementary School, and seated each child as they came on board.  It was 1,1, 2,2, 3,3 etc., two kids to a seat, assigned by me.  I also made it VERY clear that there was to be no yelling, hitting, playing on my bus – the first week or so, I often pulled over and made it clear that how long it took us to get home was up to them: a quiet bus got home MUCH quicker than a noisy bus.  I told ’em that I get paid by the hour, and it didn’t matter to me HOW long it took to get ’em home.  A quiet bus got home quicker than a noisy bus.  A bus that stayed in it’s seats, seated facing forward and "seat to seat, back to back" was much faster than a bus that did not obey the rules, which are, again, all about THEIR safety.

This is the last week of the first session of CAFE.  It’s also the second to the last week of school for 2008, and all my kids of all the grades I carry were wild today.  Somethings in the air, or it’s a Full Moon, or they see the vacation light at the end of the tunnel of school days, but ALL my kids were less controlled than "usual" and needed more management.

I try to pick my battles; to an uninformed eye, the Middle School run this afternoon was chaotic, but to my eyes, well, it WAS chaotic, but it was a Controlled chaos, and everyone got home safely.  The CAFE run is after the Middle School run, and I was determined today to have full control of the kids, after the workout the Middle Schoolers gave me.

I got to the Elementary School and loaded the kids, two to a seat.  I don’t take any guff from the kids.  They sit where I put ’em, or else.  Or else they do not ride my bus.  Period.

Tonight, the driver’s side headlight burned out, and thus I had only one headlight to see with, and I told the kids this, and that I needed them to behave and be QUIET so I could concentrate on the driving.  One boy gave me some lip.  He said "I can talk if I want to".  He has been one of the screamers, the kids who YELL, and so I told him "No, you can’t.  No talking.  Sit here and be quiet".  He said "No.  I can talk if I want to and you can’t do anything to me".  Smug little shit.

I said "you have a choice.  You can do what I say and keep quiet, or you can get off my bus".  Damned if the kid didn’t get up and get off the bus!  I can do this at school, but not out on th

e road.  The kid pulls out his cell phone (they’ve all got them, it seems like) and messes around with it, and I assume he called his parents to come get him, probably telling them he’d been kicked off the bus and telling lies about me.  It’s happened before, and  I guess I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.

It made me think of when I was a kid.  My parents would take me and my brother out to a good restaurant and tell us "how you behave in public reflects upon us.  Behave." and there were a few times when we didn’t and we got packed into the car and taken home, and likely as not, sitting down later was a painful exercise.  Yeah, we got paddled, because we had made mom and dad look bad.

Parents nowadays don’t dicipline their kids like I was at that age, and it shows.  The kids these days are rude to adults, self centered, and think the sun shines out their asses, and it shows me that the fruit don’t fall far from the trees.  They likely run the houses and have those parents jump when they say "jump" too.

Not on My bus.  My bus, My rules.  The rules, once again, are ALL about THEIR safety, and if they don’t want to follow them, they do not ride MY bus.  I am totally responsible for their safety and welfare, and if they don’t do their part, it will be my ass if they get hurt, sooo… if they don’t follow the rules, they DO NOT ride MY bus.

I left the school tonight minus that kid.  Let him tell whatever story he wants to; the camera was running and will show that he made the choice:  Follow the bus driver’s rules or get off.

We carry the future.  If that’s true, well, we’re fucked.  The kids already Know they run the show at school, and they THINK they do on the buses as well….

I am in Education; I am educating them in the "harsh" realities of the Real World.  "You ain’t shit.  If you don’t follow the rules, which are ALL about your safety, you won’t ride the bus."  Period.  No ifs, ands, or buts.

If this is the future, we are fucked.

*****