fourteen class hours
in three days. cold winter walk
to house of illness.
no breaks this weekend
as oldest tells project woes
(procrastination)
middle craves pancakes
but class again tomorrow
allows no bake time
(he’ll be up all night
holding a pail for baby
to give me this chance)
as it’s always been–
i work, work, work… he supports
(and we’re all winners)
three times last week lost
but i gave it one last try
and he finally came
this after new kids
weren’t told their schedules had changed
disrupting my class
this after failed quiz
that took half the class to start
on crap computers
after failed logins
on no less than five machines
forced copies, time lost
after failed group work
(new eval requirement
that i’ll never pass)
and pointless meeting
number one hundred fifteen
(equal to school days).
but… he came to lunch.
he redid, and passed, his quiz.
so this day is won.
half hour per kid
400 students to test:
nightmare formula
expectations lost
on those who make test money
(never worked with kids)
if they’d see our day
they’d cut this mindless bullshit
down to what’s needed
but they don’t know needs
they know only dollar signs
and we’re left to blame
another long night
(i’d never lecture this long)
yet my kids judge me
i teach how i learn:
modeling, demonstration,
then application
i plan; over plan
think things through with them in mind
everything for them
yet it doesn’t work
i’ve somehow lost touch with them
and–worse–with myself
i miss the old me
so confident, outspoken
not worried for loss
now i question all:
which kid hates me most, and why?
will i keep my job?
but the worst is dark:
why can’t i be nicer… loved?
why can’t i smile?
i’ll go on, of course–
house bought, girls in school, trap set–
but at what cost? loss?
The fire alarm went off just after the minute bell, thirty seconds before finals were to start. I had already arrived early enough to stand in line and sign out my district final. I had taken the time to organize them name by name on every other desk, ready for the students to walk in, find their place, and write their best essay of this semester.
When the alarm blared into our ears, I told the kids what door to walk out. I grabbed my coat, ready to wrap some warmth around this December Monday. I locked my classroom door, thinking about the security of the tests.
And I entered the line. The students-ready-to-give-up line. The teachers-wondering-if-there’d-be-enough-time-now-for-finals line.
And in their arms, like infants ready to suckle? Tight against their chests like their lives depended upon the survival of a few stacks of lined booklets?
Their district finals.
“Where are your tests? Did you leave them in your room??”
Like I had committed a cardinal sin.
And this moment, more than any other, is why I think our society has completely fallen apart. No way our school, our city, our fire department would plan a fire drill the Monday morning moment before finals would begin.
So this could be REAL. We could be walking out of our school into a bitter cold standstill for hours as we wait for the beautiful firemen to rush five blocks in their blaring white truck to SAVE OUR LIVES.
And I left, God forbid, the tests in that damn room.
(Of course it was an error. Of course they were doing construction in the gym that set off the alarm. Of course they adjusted our schedule, making the day twenty minutes longer than planned, cutting into our lunch, our grading time, our collection of children from school, forcing us to stand in line again, forcing our children to stand like common prostitutes on the corner because their mother couldn’t arrive on time, all because of the security of that damn test.)
Of course I’ll give up my planning period tomorrow to catch up.
But I will not carry that test like it’s my baby. I have enough babies. Three of my own and thousands more. Their words are worth more than what the district (the society) asked them to write in sixty minutes. Their lives are worth more than the security of this test.
Our lives are worth more than the security of a TEST.
Someday, I hope, we will realize this.
On the drive home, we are missing our carpool companions thanks to the relentless militarism of their middle school, and I take advantage of this moment to hop skip and jump just shy of downtown.
Me: “We all need books. This is the only library in the city that has Spanish ones.”
I: “I’m only reading this one.”
R: “That’s MY book borrowed from MY teacher that YOU stole.”
Me: “There are 100,000 books here. Can’t you choose a different one?”
Both: “Not until she gives me that one.”
I give up. I take four escalators to the top floor of the library in the center of the city, the epicenter of the Latino world, where I stare down four shelves of outdated, bindings-falling-off Spanish books, trying to find one that is 1) at my level 2) not a hundred years old 3) interesting. What a bunch of bullshit this is. ¡No me jodas!
We ride home in silence. Semi-silence. They read. I listen to La Busca de Felicydad while R groans about my Spanish audiobooks. We sit in traffic and I miss the turn because I’m listening to how a small fatherless black boy has to witness his stepfather beating the shit out of his poor mother whose education was denied by her father so her brother could go to school and I am thinking about how fucking entitled my white children are and how unentitled my refugee students are who learn the new vocabulary phrase, “take it off” and all the girls write, for their “demonstration of knowledge” sentence, “As soon as I get home, I take off my hijab.” Like it’s a burden, a weight, a freedom they wait all day to release, and my own kids are fighting over a damn book.
But bless them all the same. For loving to read. For fighting over a damn book.
And this is America, I think, as we drive past the wealthiest mall with its block of Christmas-lit trees. As R settles into her hopeful view of the book I will leave for her. As I will rise and teach tomorrow, perhaps a new phrase such as, “What gives us hope?” And they will post pictures of their childhood in the refugee camp and my girls will ask me to read them a story (because they’re never too old) and I will drive the carpool home and hope for a better America. One without militarism. Without fear.
With books and love. Books and love. Where we can all learn what it means to “take it off.”
To find a Spanish book on the fourth floor of the library. To read. To give in to sisterly needs. To remember that we are all refugees.
That we all seek shelter. In a book. A drive. A removal of a hijab.
In each other’s arms.
we walk seven blocks
in the semi-melted snow
to visit police
there is no jail time
no judgment of rainbow kids
as they ask questions
an open forum
for them to see the whole truth
(media won’t share)
they talk about peace
how some never used a gun
or even raised one
the kids question them
with patience, honesty… doubt
and they all. listen.
does doubt follow them?
they cast shadows on the streets
in the midday sun
their bright faces grin
pepper me with more questions
upon our return
thanks for taking us
the one thing i need to hear
from today’s visit
(they’ll remember this–
not the snow, the sun–the walk
the walk towards peace, hope)
even though i work
i’m blessed with housewife duties
on weeks off from school
our yearly bake fest
produced three minis, five pies
hard to beat this day
while rolling out crust
that we shaped so perfectly
they giggled, measured
but we all know best:
it’s not the crust that makes pies–
love’s in the filling
finally a break
monotony busts busy
cross-stitched piece by peace
of course, a bike ride
soaking in late autumn sun
that shines on Denver
laser tag trial
semi-wary girls: boy land
(we fight our way through)
tea, soup, spoon bread, love:
dinner stewing our return
(housewifery week)
end with beginning:
angel bear guarding baby
waiting to come out
They come into two classes to tell them the (what I think will be simple) news: they will have a new English teacher next semester, and it won’t be me. The AP describes it in her usual convoluted fashion: “We are growing as a school, and we need your teacher’s skills to teach another class, and you’re going to have a different teacher.”
Z shouts out (as always–no one scares him)–“Wait. So we have the teacher with the best skills and you’re going to give us the teacher with the least?”
She begrudgingly looks at me: “Is that what I just said?”
But I know what he means. I speak his outspoken language.
Another student: “But I like this small class. It’s safe.”
Another: Tears. No words.
Another (different class): “I ain’t doin’ it. I’m still coming here fourth period. Try and stop me.”
AP (to me): “Isn’t it great to be loved?”
And I think, these are the same kids I threw under the bus the other day for not showing up on the “NOT” snow day. These are the kids I was jumping up and down about saying goodbye to because I want to teach immigrants, kids who really care, who are fully invested in wanting to be in my classroom every day. On time. Ready to learn.
And I feel a mix of joy and hatred all in the same moment.
And I think about these things, these fourteen-year-old faces running across my mind as I begin my Thanksgiving break. As I drive the carpool kids home and drop my girls off at piano and put frozen pizza (my Friday cop-out meal) in the oven and cross stitch and listen to my Spanish book and wait until the optimal moment before venturing out into the snow back into my old neighborhood.
I am saying goodbye to these green walls and these three girls and all the kids who have come in and out of my classroom for fifteen years to drive into richville and pretend like I’m someone else.
It is just what I thought and nothing like I thought. One block away from where I grew up, a 1940s war home that (amazingly) hasn’t been torn down… just doubled in size on the backside, granite counters and a peak-through kitchen from the living to dining to family room to breakfast nook. The hostess is a jubilant extroverted redhead with children who are driving up with their father to ski training for a week. She proudly shows us the brownies and fudge they made, the doggie bandanna (“bark scarves”) business her children have developed (web site and all), describes the destruction and reconstruction of her “starter-turned-family” home.
And I make the mistake of telling all the blond and blue-eyed businesswomen-doctor-lawyer-private-school-till-now moms that I teach. At the local high school.
And they want the good. The bad. The ugly.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on it for years.”
“I even hosted a German exchange student a couple years ago to see how it was (and I wasn’t impressed).”
“I heard the principal is leaving.”
“I heard that there’s no accountability.”
“I heard they have a great football team.”
And there I stand. In the middle. I’m not going to lie. And I’m not really going to satisfy their curiosity either. And I’m not going to go home to a mansion. And send my kids to a ski team training. Or use Uber because “it’s better than driving.” I’m not going to be a “CEO recruiter” and tear down half a house because the one I bought wasn’t good enough. I’m not going to find some German kid to “test out the local high school” for me.
And I’m not going to lie.
“It’s apathetic.”
“The administration is mediocre at best.”
“The kids don’t do their homework.”
Everything they want to know. And don’t want to know.
Because I’m in the middle. I am a teacher and a mother. And I constantly ask myself: What is best for my kids? (MY kids.) And: What is best for my kids (THEIR kids). And the answers almost never match up.
Because that kid who cried in my class today told me his story about his mom beating the shit out of him. About social services ripping him away from her broken-bottle alcoholic rants. About the safe haven with grandparents in New Mexico. About how fucking scared he is every time he steps out of his Denver home because his mom lives SOMEWHERE IN THIS STATE.
And he doesn’t want to tell it again.
Because that kid who said he likes the small class can’t quite do work when “he’s going through some emotional tough shit, Miss,” and I let him have extra time.
Because that kid who said, “I ain’t gonna do it” has lingered into lunch on five occasions, emptying my wallet for a few bucks to have a meal.
Because I can’t lie. And I can’t tell the truth. And I can’t be a CEO recruiter who could never understand why a day filled with luncheons and a flexible schedule will never be my day. I can’t fit in with the blond-and-blue-eyed bitches just as well as I can’t fit my kids in with kids who won’t do their fucking homework (and yet I love them anyway).
There is no middle ground. There is no balance to what I face every day (tears and joy, tears and joy) and what I want my kids to see (apathy mixed with perseverance???).
And there is no way in hell a single one of these women would understand where I’m coming from anyway.
So why am I here? Why am I asking these questions?
I put my coat on and the hostess begins a story about running out of gas at the top of a pass on the way to a camping trip and coasting down the mountain into the only gas station in town.
I tell my story of driving 5000 miles in a Prius and running out gas in a no-cell-phone range and putting on my bike helmet and riding my bike down I-70 for six miles at 21:30 and my husband guarding the three kids in the back seat.
“I like your story better,” she admits as she walks me to the door. “I think I might steal it and call it my own.”
She’d be just like those other teachers who Z thinks “don’t have the skills” to teach him. Just like my kids who I can’t quite fit in to this frenzied life of private schools and ski team training.
Just like me. Stuck in the middle, good story in hand, just not quite the right place to publish it.
Step Write Up 