I distinctly remember August 1. It was a hot day, but a nice one, and the honeymoon environment still permeated the school. I went out to eat a restauarnt down the street from my house (which remains as sparsely furnished now as it was that day), and turned in early. My monotenous day was however noteworthy for the singular reason that this marked the beginning of an epic silence, a deafening silence, a lull dreaded and impactful from sea to sea: August 1 began my unplanned and unprecedented silence from the Blogosphere. Contrary to what you may believe based on my radio silence since that day long ago, I was neither dead nor kidnapped by Somali pirates, though I appreciate the concern expressed around those two possibilities.
August was a busy but productive month. September came, bringing our fall break and two weeks of tranquility in Da Burgh. October rolled in dramatically, and ended in a typically New Orleanian brand of flamboyance (read debauchery). Now, as I sit here staring at a small mountain of ungraded Exit tickets and ScanTrons bubble sheets, I can't help but wonder where these three months have gone, or what I've taught these kids, if anything at all. Last night, my aunt reminded me that I am rapidly approaching the quarter-of-the-way mark for my Teach for America commitment. Which means I've spent nearly six months playing teacher. Which means I feel like I've been at this game for approximately 1.75 decades.
But these 1.75 decades have been good ones, like living through the Clinton years twice in a row, or better yet, the Harding years six times in a row. I've realized that my world essentially revolves around a 160 five-foot-something suns, who swear like sailors and who can go from hugging you to swinging at you in about 1/70th of a second.
Of course, not all of them, not even a majority of them, reach that level of rascal-cality. One of my favorite students is a sixth grader who bears a striking resemblence to the hypothetical love child of a bowling ball and Fred Flintsone. He clomps along, as any sixth grader does, physically unable to stop his mouth from moving. With most kids, incessant talking drives me nuts. Absolutely insane. Like nails on a chalkboard (which have, incidentally, been replaced almost entirely by whiteboards). But with this kid, I don't mind hearing him squawk, mostly because he is hillarious, and finds no one as funny as he finds himself. This kid could sit in an empty room and keep himself laughing for hours. The good news here is that I'm the Vice President of his fan club (of which he is clearly the President---you think I'm kidding, but he actually told me, in so many words). This child has, since Day 1, ignored the frequent and obvious posters around my name that say things like "Mr. Glasser's Desk" and "Mr. Glasser is reading:" or "Don't forget to call Mr. Glasser for help!". Instead of taking those obvious reminders of my moniker, this laboy (vernacular contracted version of "lil boi", which is an abbreviated version of "Little Boy") insists on calling me Mr. Glasses. For weeks, I thought I was mishearing her. For weeks following that, I heard students correct him. Since then, I've embraced it.
One day, that student was absent. Another student asked me why I don't correct him, "You know that laboy is gonna feel played if you tell him in May that he's been calling you the wrong name." "Yeah," I responded, "you're right. But honestly, I think it's so adorable and so funny that I don't have the heart to correct him." After she laughed for a while, she agreed. "Can we promise to never tell him again?" she asked the class of 20 sixth graders.
It was the one time that all paid attention to me and all agreed, but you have to start somewhere.
Staying in the vein of rotund little guys, I started working with a seventh grader who begged and begged and begged and begged to learn French. We don't have electives in our little schoolhouse, so any interests the young bucks have need to be cultivated outside of school hours. He is not your picture of a typical linguist. Instead, he sounds like Fat Albert after twenty years of a pack-a-day, and he bears in his beer belly, which he affectionately calls his "Wooba." We first started slow, learning the alphabet, learning numbers, and learning to greet one another in French. We met twice a week, introducing each other to awesome Youtube videos while he would kick a beat with a pencil on his desk as we spit the French alphabet.
Fun fact: we have very different taste in humorous Youtube videos.
Slightly embarrasing factoid: we have really similar taste in music. I showed the good Rev. Al Green, and he showed me an underground Lil Wayne mixtape, edited version of course.
After a couple of weeks of these lessons, I turned a corner to hear him reciting a poem I taught him to learn numbers. He didn't turn in any of his homework that day, but he had copied the poem five times in French and in English, and his pronunciation was damn near perfect.
But its not all rainbows and butterflies. Over our Fall break, I got a panicked call from the mother of one of the 8th graders I had gotten to be pretty close with. We went out to buy him football cleats together, I brought dinner to his family and ate it with them (since he was on house arrest, we had to eat in pretty often), and he asked to work with me when he was behind or worked up. But over the break, with no possibility of leaving his house because of his ankle jewelry, he snapped. He went nuts and began to yell at his mother. The situation escalated from there until, finally, it got to be physical. His mom promptly kicked him out to live with his father on the other side of the city.
With that call, my inertia really kicked in. I was living the life in Pittsburgh, and a huge motivator for me at work was gone. Obviously I never even remotely considered leaving my job, my kids, or this city. But the grease was gone off the wheels, and going back was tough.
But about 15 minutes into the day, as students were entering the building, I started to get back into the swing of the day as kids came in refreshed and almost excited to be back in school. One young, ambitious eighth grader came in lacking his usual zeal and awkward, pubescent vocals. I asked what was up.
"You know Au'sha? From our class?"
"Yeah, of course."
"He's dead." he told me, too matter of factly.
I guess my initial reaction was to chastize this boy for making a bad joke about a classmate. But when I saw the stream of young ladies start coming upstairs with streams of tears carrying their over-application of mascara away from their eyes, I could not deny it was true.
The details of the crime were gruesome and senseless and infuriating and sickening. The slow-motion investigation that ensued was enormously frustrating, but ultimately uncovered a perpetraitor.
People say that bad news is a wet blanket. This news was less like a wet blanket on the school as it was like a tennis ball launcher loaded with bricks, set to non-stop. Being at school hurt, for us and for the students. And even as it hurt, and even as students found it impossible to make it through the day or merely walk through the door, they also mobilized for each other. You would see hugs or pats on the back between students throughout the day. No one had the energy to act up, and there was a sense that squandering school was an insult to Au'sha and his memory.
When students lost control orl ost sight of the bigger picture, their friends would remind them. If their freinds weren't around, their classmates would step-in. When their classmates weren't around, their enemies would take up the mantle and give them a hug.
If tragedies have to have a silver lining, I'm still having trouble focusing on that in the case of Au'sha's murder. But I suppose one bright spot was obvious among our students, our scholars, his friends: students learned to cope with devastation, to express their feelings, to grieve a loss, to depend on friends, and to fondly remember a loved one. They're children, forced to grow up too quickly, but their only hope is to rise to the challenge.
Still, its difficult to shake the notion that we, particularly our kids, live in a world devoid of justice, where hard work is often fruitless, and where every single step of the climb is uphill. I want to be there to congratulate them when they finally make it to that summit.
Someone wise once told me that you should never leave a crowd depressed, and so, a lighter note to end:
This past Saturday, after weeks of playing on my Catholic guilt, a few of my students coerced me into going to our flag football game...at 9 AM. Some people have lead feet. I have lead eyelids, and they don't open easily on Saturdays at 9 AM. One student, let's call him Mark, was really excited to go to the game, but didn't have a ride. We made a deal that if he ended the week without detentions, I would buy him lunch and I would take him to the game. Mark came through on his end, so I had to come through on mine.
The boys lost a barn burner 16-12 (we had a six point TD and three, count 'em three, safeties), but it was hilarious to watch them screaming and huddling and hoo-hahing all morning. By their intensity, it might as well have been the Superbowl of middle school flag football.
On the way home, Mark and I stopped for lunch at Wendy's. All morning, Mark had been surprisingly forthcoming about his life: his friends, his triggers, his goals, and his insecurities (he's so embarrassed that he can't swim. So that's next on our To-Do list). Mark had been labeled by our school as a behavior issue, meaning that teachers tended to write him off quickly. He told me that he often felt attacked and vulnerable, unwatned and intolerable.
If I felt that way everyday, I'd act up, too.
A homeless man greeted Mark and I as we headed into Wendy's. We didn't have cash so we offered to buy him lunch instead of giving him a dollar. After Mark delivered the Single Combo meal to the gentleman, he came back in and sighed too deeply for a kid his age.
"What's up, my man?" I asked.
"Man, I don't want to be that guy."
"What?" I asked, not following Mark's half-baked logic.
"When I grow up, I want to be the guy who helps the guy, not the guy who needs the help."
It wasn't much, but it was worth the price of admission.
