The Water

It's been a little while since I've posted.  And I chock this up to two things, the first being the end of term madness that my teaching program has become, with its attending papers and lesson plans and reflections.  The second reason is a little bit more problematic, because it's about weariness. 

I've noticed this sort of predictable rhythm to what I've written--partly because there's a predictable rhythm to what I'm experiencing, but there's also a predictable rhythm to my response to it.  Maybe the most resonant thing I've learned in the few months that I've inhabited Edison is this: that there is a kind of tectonic grind to that place.  And I've felt like a kind of bystander--despite my many years of teaching--watching those massive forces work on both the children and the adults.

I had a frightening realization the other day.  I'm in this strange position of being there, in the room with the kids, without any real responsibility for the kids.  Laura is in charge.  And on some days I've led the class, and I've done a lot of one-on-one work, and when there's technology involved I tend to help out a lot more, but at the end of the day if the ship sinks--and the water is rising, folks, steadily rising--it's on her, not me, and she knows that and the kids know that.

But in the spring, I'm going back there.  (In the winter I will be at a high school in a nearby small town, which I will call "Edison High", teaching a six-week unit to one section.)  And the students at Edison Middle School will still be swimming in the water of this place.  And they will have swum in the water while I was gone.  And who knows what humiliations they will have suffered in my absence (I imagine they will be similar to the humiliations they have suffered in my presence).  The water will be the same.

That's the frightening realization I came to: that no matter what I do, these kids are still fish in water.  They move in it.  They breathe it.  And it is invisible to them.  At the end of the day they are immersed in this school--and the teachers, they too are immersed in it. I'm referring here to a little parable to the oft cited story off the fish and their water.  Here's a version of that little parable from "This is water," a commencement address given by the late David Foster Wallace:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

Here is my fear: that I return to that place with all of my good intentions and maybe even a few good tricks up my sleeves (and I intend to go in with my best) and everything I try gets refracted through the water, because the kids will see me through the school, just as I have tried to see them through the school, and though it will most certainly be me calling out their names and waving my arms at them, my fear is that they will see only what they have seen before.

But it dawns on me that maybe my job is to do as that older fish does in the little parable--to ask them "how's the water"--and then demand that they sit still in it for a while and figure out for themselves for a little while just what the hell all this water is about.

The Children Aren't Allowed To Sing

On Tuesday it was Aslynn’s birthday.  Tony, one of our most distractible and unhappy fifth period students, upon learning this fact, burst into a spontaneous and raucous rendition of “Happy Birthday.”  A few intrepid students joined in.  They got to the end of the first “you” when Laura came crashing down on Tony and his singing comrades.

It was a terrible moment for everyone in the room.  And for the life of me I cannot understand why she did it.  Here was a spontaneous outburst of goodwill from one student to another.  And here was a student who usually brings negative energy into the room, bringing some love and affection for his peer.  But because it was noisy--and because it was Tony, who Laura just doesn’t like--that out pouring of affection was shut down.

And so I wondered, what could have been going through her head.

I imagine that her fear that the class will spiral out of control (not an irrational fear) was at play.  And her frustration with Tony’s total disengagement with the class (which she knows is based on his extraordinarily low skills and confidence).  And the presence of Mr. Darling, the gruff, bearded instructional aid provided to her by the school to help manage the 17 kids in the class who are on IEPs.  It was his first day in the room, and perhaps she wanted to show him how she did things in the fifth period.

How do we do things in 5th period.  Laura smashes their fingers in doors (metaphorically speaking), and I try not to undermine her with my facial expressions.

Later in class, Tony asked me straight out: “I mean, answer me honestly, don’t you ever get tired of Ms. Croft?”

And I could not answer him honestly.  Because of course being in her class daily is extremely tiresome.  I have long grown weary of the tedium and the hostility towards children and the total lack of interest in anything relating to their lives. I am bone-weary of her lectures and her obsession with controlling their behavior, their moods, their attitudes.  But I could not answer Tony honestly because it would have been unprofessional to do so, so I redirected him back to the task at hand: writing down the names of characters she thought were important and a few facts about each character that she thought were important.