That had to be the shortest lunch block in the history of public schools! Maybe it was due to my not being able to coerce any food past the knot in my throat. Maybe it was because I dared not try to eat in the teacher's lounge because I knew I would likely burst into tears if anyone was nice to me. Instead, I kept telling myself what my first high school basketball coach used to tell us: "the best defense is a good offense."

I stood by my door and greeted each student by name as they returned from lunch. I had learned early on that it was a great disciplinary tool as the students knew I expected them to respond to me when I spoke to them.

"Okay, folks, let's get something right out in the open from the beginning. I believe what has been done to you is nothing short of criminal." (This really got their attention. Everyone sat straight up and had their eyes glued on me.) "There are standards of performance which students are required to meet at each grade level in order to be promoted. For whatever reason, none of you were consistently held to these standards, possibly because your teachers did not believe in you the way I do."

Now Rayvon spoke up, "So what's the plan, teach?"

"The plan is to get all of you at least through the fifth grade standards; however, we are going to have to go back to the basics in order to get it done," I replied.

"And just how basic is basic," Rayvon asked.

"Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers."

"Oh, no," someone retorted, the other kids will laugh at us."

"Who's going to tell them?" I asked.

"They can look through the panel in the door and through the windows. It will be easy for them to watch what we're doing."

"What if I cover the door panel and keep the window shades pulled down?"

Rayvon, ever the spokesman answered, "Okay, lady, you've got a deal. What're we doing first?"

"Something simple, since it's football season."

"What's football got to do with math?" someone called out.

"Just wait and see. Everybody needs to get out a sheet of paper and a pencil. If you don't have one or the other, you know where the extras are."

I picked up the Sunday sports page that I had brought in for just this moment. I sat down and began browsing through it, occasionally stopping and jotting something down. The kids began getting antsy.

"Miss Brown. Miss Brown. Why are you reading the paper? Why aren't you teaching us about math in football?"

I stood up and apologized, saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I was looking for some football scores from this past weekend's games. "

Brian, one of the water boys for the varsity football team said, "You don't need no paper. We beat Southeastern High School 29 -- 6 Friday night. I saw you there. Did you forget?"

"I guess it just slipped my mind, Brian. But that score will work great for what I want us to do. On your paper, make two short columns. On the left side, we are going to write the ways in which a football team can score. On the right side, we will note how many points the team gets for each type of score. Does anyone know how a team can score just one point?"

Sally, one of my two girls, almost jumped out of her desk with excitement. "I can! I can! It's when some dude kicks the football over the goal post after his team scores a touchdown."

I laughed out loud before I asked her why she called the kicker a dude.