Page 5 of Friends with Benefits

Milo stands, his chair screeching against the floor. “The twenty-four-hour Spoiler Embargo may be lifted if Mr. Cohen’s winner pick is eliminated.”

Milo then marches over to Theo’s desk to hand him the amendment, handwritten and signed by the entire class.Embargowas a challenge vocab word last week. Milo genuinely did spoil last night’s episode for Theo, but he’s way tooproud that his kids just correctly usedembargoin a sentence to care. Integrating his favorite television show into his curriculum has made Mr. Cohencool. The teacher every fourth grader crosses their fingers and wishes for at Foothill Elementary. Kids live for the challenges. Theo has a collection ofSurvivorpuzzles in his classroom—color pattern, unscramble the phrase, 3D, and, of course, the iconic slide puzzle.

Every Friday starts with aSurvivorrecap and a puzzle.

Theo reads the amendment, his expression serious.

Minor spoilers are worth the collective joy his students take in calling him a loser.

“Fair enough.”

Theo pins the amendment to the corkboard hanging on the wall above his desk, alongside the rules for participating inSurvivorFridays and the list with each kid’s winner pick. Successfully select who wins after the first episode and receive either a homework pass or five extra points on the weekly vocabulary quiz. If his winner pick is eliminated pre-jury, the finale party becomes an ice cream party.

Theo chooses a likely pre-jury boot with intention, to give his kids an ice cream party.

It’s been great for classroom management,SurvivorFridays with Mr. Cohen. It keeps the kids on track, looking forward to the puzzles and strategy chats at the end of the week. Theo can make any concept relate back to the show—the science behind some of the physical challenges, the character arcs and storytelling over the course of the season, the complicated history of the filming locations and challenging the show’s appropriation of Indigenous culture. During his first year teaching, Ms. Connors spoke to Theo aboutappropriationbeing a challenge vocab word after a parent complainedthatpolitics have no place in the classroom.He now makes it a point to use it as the challenge word on the first vocabulary quiz of the year.

It’s the easiest way to immediately identify the Problem Parents.

In college, Theo took Classroom Management, a semester-long unit dedicated to tips and tricks for managing problem students—the disruptors who pull focus and derail a lesson with an off-topic comment or an ill-timed fart joke. But Theo learned real quick that nine times out of ten, kids are not the problem. It’s the parents who derail a lesson with a call to Ms. Connors, who question his independent reading list, who discredit him because he’s one of the youngest teachers at Foothill.

Parents are the worst part of the job.

Easily.

But the kids are worth it.

Theo crosses his name off theSurvivorboard, and everyone cheers. “Okay! You’ve had your laugh, so it’s time for mine. Who’s ready to learn how to multiply some fractions?”

“Are you going to sing?” Annabelle asks.

“You know it.”

Cue a collective groan.

They’ll complain about Mr. Cohen’s songs. Call him cringe or corny. But he’ll sing a song about multiplying fractions to the tune of “Let It Go” and it will stick. Even if they mock him, they will havemultiply, multiply, the numerators to-ge-therstuck in their heads until the end of time. Or at least until the statewide cumulative exam. His mom taught him that. She had a song for everything, and Theo can still hear her singing them. It’s in these moments, when he’s introducing a new concept via song, that he feels closest to her.

After a somewhat successful lesson, Theo’s students line up two-by-two for gym class. Handing them over to Ms. Walsh begins forty-five minutes of quiet. Usually. It’s his prep period, meant for setting up for the afternoon, for grading Play-Doh dioramas of endangered species, for Clorox disinfecting the surfaces of his classroom. Sometimes, Juniper Delgado, a third-grade teacher whose kids are in art class when his are in gym, will knock on his door and they’ll do some grading together to a compilation of Seth Meyers monologues. Most of the time, he’s listening to aSurvivorrecap podcast, oscillating between photocopying enough worksheets for the rest of the week and texting his best friend, Evelyn Bloom.

But today?

Today, his precious prep time is booked with the principal of Foothill Elementary.

Theo knocks on the office door. “Ms. Connors—”

“Veronica,” Ms. Connors corrects with a soft chuckle.

Veronica Connors has been the principal at Foothill Elementary since Theo was a student at this same school. It doesn’t matter how many times she insists on being calledVeronica—she will never not be Ms. Connors to him. This applies to any educator Theo knew as a student at Foothill. It’s weird, the shift in perspective from student to colleague.

Theo’s positive he’ll never get used to it.

“Veronica,” he repeats, then takes a seat in one of the chairs in front of her desk.

Her eyes shift from her desktop to meet his. “How are you, Theo?”

“Good.”

“What’s on the agenda?”

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