by Ilana Garon
We were sitting in the science lab after school, grading papers.
“You know, I think you could do a lot of good if you came out,” I told him, instantly thinking of Adam, who was so tough and capable, and yet probably needed a mentor badly—one who could identify with him better than I could. “Like, there might be so many gay and questioning kids here who are afraid to come out and who really need a role model. You could form a Gay-Straight Alliance. Hell, I’d co-chair it with you.”
He looked at me with a cocked eyebrow. “Easy for you to say—you’d be the straight half of the alliance.”
I shut up.
Some of the kids wondered. Periodically, I would hear them speculating about him in class. But most of them not only thought that he was straight—they thought that we were dating. At one point, he and I were walking to the train station together when a group of kids ran out of a neighborhood pizza joint, screaming with delight and throwing their books in the air. “We knew it! We knew you were going out!” they cried, deliriously happy. Apparently, our walk to the subway together had been just the confirmation they needed. Dan and I just looked at each other and laughed. After that, whenever I was looking for Dan, I would say, “Hey, do you guys know where my boyfriend is?” and they’d all fall about in stitches.
Most of them were fooled. Except for Adam.
Dan came to me midsemester and handed me a tiny folded piece of paper. “What the hell do I do about this?” He looked anxious.
I opened the paper and instantly recognized Adam’s handwriting, though I didn’t tell Dan. Dear Mr. C., it read. I think you are the most handsome teacher ever, and brilliant as well. I’m in love with you. I know you are the youngest teacher in the school, and I wonder if you would consider dating someone only a few years younger than yourself . . . It went on like this for about a page, and then was signed, Your Secret Admirer.
“It’s from me,” I said, looking up and refolding the piece of paper. “I’m your secret admirer. Take me to bed or lose me forever.”
He rolled his eyes. “You and I both know it’s from Adam.”
“You . . . I mean, we do?”
“Yes! He’s only been mooning around my classroom every single day this week.”
“Crap.” I had known Adam was lonely from day one, when he had said on his index card that he wished he had a new boyfriend. But this seemed rash for a kid who was normally so self-possessed and mature. That he would make such drastic overtures to catch the attention of the one other semi-openly gay man in the school made me realize one thing: Adam was desperate.
“What do you want to do about this?” I asked Dan.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want this to be, you know, where everyone finds out. . . .” He looked at me meaningfully.
“He and I are close,” I said. “Can I talk to him for you?”
______
I pulled Adam aside at lunch. “You got a few minutes?” I asked him.
“Of course!” He looked so thrilled to see me that I felt awful for the blow I was about to deliver.
I led him into an empty classroom and we each sat in a desk and faced each other. For a couple of minutes we made small talk. Then I got to the point.
“Okay. We have to discuss something,” I said.
He looked concerned. “What is it?”
“The letter you sent to Dan—I mean, uh, to Mr. C.”
“I didn’t send him a letter,” he said, looking down at the desk.
“Adam, come on. I know it was you. I know your handwriting.”
“He showed it to you? I mean—what’s wrong with my sending him a complimentary letter?” He was on the defensive now; I could hear it in the rising pitch of his voice.
I sighed. “Adam, you just can’t send letters like that to teachers. It’s completely inappropriate.”
“But—”
“Shh. Listen,” I said, putting my hand up. “You know as well as I do that students and teachers can’t have romantic relationships. It’s incredibly illegal. You can’t ask out your teacher, the same way they can’t ask you out. If anything like that is even suspected, a teacher can lose his or her job. Look. I know you really like Dan. He’s a great guy. But do you understand what an awkward and vulnerable position you’re putting him in, especially with his being a new teacher?”
By now Adam was crying. He made no effort to hide the tears streaming down his face.
“It’s just so lonely,” he sobbed. “You don’t know how it is being the only one.”
I took his hand and held it. We sat quietly for a few moments until his sobbing quieted. I did not know what to say; I felt terrible.
“Hey,” I finally said. “You okay?” He sniffed in response. “Sweetheart, listen. High school is just . . . I don’t know . . . rotten. Seriously. Anyone who ever tells you high school was the best time of their life is either a complete idiot or a liar.”
He grinned half-heartedly.
“I know you’ve got it tough.” I watched tears spring back into his eyes. “Being gay here must be . . . maddening.”
He wiped his eyes.
“I guess college . . . well, I think you’ll have a million boyfriends. High school . . .” I paused, thinking for an accurate metaphor. “Well, my mom says high school is like being tricked into going on a first date dressed in a chicken suit. I feel like that pretty much sums it up.”
At this, he laughed a little bit. I felt relieved, though I knew it was only because he was allowing me to.
“It sucks,” I said. “But you’ll get through it.”
“I know I will,” he said.
The kids are somewhat better behaved in this school; it makes me wonder what the teachers they drove out would have done if they’d ever taught at Explorers. Due to the fact that the kids’ parents have to sign them up for the program, the school is ensured a student body whose families place some emphasis on education; this was certainly not the case in the school I came from (downstairs). Academically, they’re not much more advanced, but they are significantly more focused. There are far fewer problems with truancy, and when I assign homework most of them actually do it.
They also get excited about learning. Last week I prepared some scenes for them to act out. By my third English class of the day, word had gotten around that we were doing skits in class, and so the kids came in saying “Are we acting? Can I have a part?” I was surprised and pleased by their enthusiasm.
One thing that has stayed the same is the consistent fighting. Besides the gang problems that are endemic to the building (no more to one school small or big school within it than another), the kids are really unable to resolve any dispute without a full-on war.
It’s funny, actually, because their fights are so unbelievably stupid: In Explorers, kids would fight over whose sneakers were cooler or if you took a dig at someone’s mother. Here, they fight over being interrupted in class. On Wednesday, I called on a girl named Michaela, listened to her speak, and then said, “Good job, Michaela. Shadae, would you like to add anything?” Michaela said, “I’m not finished.” Shadae retorted, “Oh yes you are.” They immediately started screaming obscenities and pounding each other into the ground. Two of the big boys and I pried them apart, while a third ran to get security. It was dramatic.
The following day, another altercation: A girl named Kara asked the teacher a question about the dress code, which another girl, Janelle, took to be a dig at her, implying that she was (gasp!) not following the dress code. This fight spilled out into the hallway with screams of “Who you callin’ a skank???” and the ensuing beat down that was thankfully broken up by security quickly.
So it’s definitely not perfect. But it is a significant improvement, and I feel very hopeful that this year will be better than the last two. I am enjoying being able to teach more academically and doing less behavior modification; already, we’ve done a small unit on prejudice and hate crime legislation, written several short essays, and gotten through a good chunk of To K
ill a Mockingbird without allegations of racism on either my part or Harper Lee’s, so this seems like progress.
Even after now that I’ve been in my “new” small school a couple of months, which is decidedly less “crazy” than Explorers, I still keep having this particular recurring dream. It’s one I’ve had consistently over the past couple of years. In it, I’m sitting in class, and all of a sudden one of the students raises a gun out of nowhere and points it at the back of another kid’s head. Then I wake up, sweating.
Things are very busy, but generally good. This week was difficult because I lost my voice. Not being able to yell would have been murder in Explorers proper (or “Big Explorers,” as we call it), but the kids here at least pretend to do what you tell them to. I put up instructions for group work on the board, and then delegated a student to make announcements for me. This involved me whispering in dulcet tones to said student, who would then scream whatever I’d said across the classroom, along with whatever other announcements s/he felt like making (“And by the way, Christina and Carl are going out”). So things worked out okay, well, at least with the eleventh-graders. . . .
My ninth-grade math kids were another story and basically act like the kids in Big Explorers, except that they’re actually the age they’re supposed to be because they haven’t been held back several times. With them, it’s constantly “Ms. Garon! He’s touching me!” and “No, he touched me first!” and “She stole my pen!” and “Shanice is looking at me!”
I separate them, reseat them, call homes, etc. When I come into the room every day, I basically have to “unclump” them, since they’re always on top of each other play-fighting in varying degrees. It’s fabulous. Periodically I have the urge to say, “Oh, act your age!” and then I remember they’re fourteen and think saying “Don’t act your age!” would probably be a more appropriate course of action. . . .
Many of them, in some clingy display of ninth-grade love that I don’t quite understand, like to bring their chairs right up to my desk and work around me. Usually this just causes me to trip on their chairs every time I move, but in this case it was useful, because I could whisper to them while they did their work, and the few remaining kids who didn’t feel the need to be right up in my armpits all the time were generally able to avoid killing each other.
I do have to say that teaching math has been (and continues to be) interesting. I’m consistently surprised both by how much I remember from my own high school years and by how much I’ve forgotten. So far I’ve taught concepts like frequency, cumulative frequency, and probability, as well as reviewed things like exponents, signed numbers (negative or positive), and order of operations. My best ideas have involved giving everyone colored pens to fill in their histograms to show the different frequencies, and using bags with different kinds of candy to demonstrate probability: “So if there are seven Jolly Ranchers and six Snickers, and Tyler picks a Snickers on his turn, then if Blessing picks randomly what is the probability he will draw a Snickers as well?”
Trying to figure out how to teach math has been interesting for me. Mostly I follow the lessons that are provided for me by a senior math teacher, but I have to review the information myself the night before to make sure I know it, and trying to explain verbally always requires some thought, especially since I was never that great at math to begin with. But overall, it’s been a pretty interesting challenge, and I don’t regret having taken it on—not that I had any choice in the matter.
CHAPTER TEN
Alfredo
Alfredo came to my tenth-grade English class with a reputation. This, in itself, was not noteworthy; there were other kids known for starting problems, and I didn’t even know what Alfredo looked like until the moment he walked into my classroom the first day. Other teachers, however, were constantly telling me stories about fights he had started, terrible things he had said and done in class. The previous year, he had actually been suspended for hitting a teacher, who had subsequently told me that he had threatened to wait for her out by her car and “jump her” after school. For this, he had received a sixty-day suspension. I had seen teachers in the lounge, reduced to tears, who had only replied “Alfredo” when I had asked what was wrong.
“Watch out for that kid; he’s nuts,” the veteran teachers told me.
Even Alfredo’s older sister, Elyssa, who I am fairly certain had stolen my wallet the previous semester (though she never admitted it), stopped me in the stairwell to ask if he was behaving.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” I told her. There was nothing about his appearance to suggest menace—he was a skinny boy of about five feet, six inches with brown hair in a short buzz cut and tanned skin. He wore a hearing aid in one ear. In the couple of weeks since school had begun, all Alfredo had done was come up to my desk and touch things on it without permission. “Hey, silly guy, go sit down now,” I had told him mildly, wanting to defuse any potential conflict. He had grinned and done just what I had asked.
His sister laughed at my naïveté. “Wait,” she said.
I was perplexed. The only thing remotely problematic about Alfredo, as far as I could tell, was that every quiz he turned in was either blank or totally unintelligible. That, and his attendance. But there were other students like that.
Then, a month or so into the term, I got my first glimpse of what made Alfredo so infamous. We were studying Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The students were in groups, clipping magazine pictures to make MySpace or Facebook pages for the characters in the play. On a profile for Caesar himself, for instance, the students listed “tyranny, killing Pompeii, becoming king,” and of course, “my hot wife Calpurnia” in the Interests category. There was giggling all over the room.
Alfredo was not participating. I came up to him and said, “Alfredo, don’t you want to join a group?”
He looked up at me with irritation and said, in his best imitation of a gangster voice, “I’m not doing this shit. Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?”
I looked up at the students, who were now staring in our direction. In a moment of inspiration, I called out in a mock announcer’s voice, “Ladies and gentleman, this poor boy is having a problem: He cannot remember his name. Can anyone identify him?”
There was a moment of dead silence, and then the kids burst out laughing. “Ooooh, snap!” they yelled. Alfredo sunk into his seat and ignored us all for the rest of the period.
The following week, the students were taking turns reading the parts out loud. I could never get them to act—despite their willingness to make fools of themselves yelling out goofy comments in class (“Brutus is a G!”), they would all suddenly develop stage fright when pressed to perform in front of their classmates. Reading aloud was the most I could get from them.
I was sitting on the desk following along with their reading when I happened to look over at Alfredo and saw that he was not even looking at his copy of the play. Instead, he was feverishly writing in his notebook.
“Alfredo, open up the play and follow along with the reading, okay?” I said to him. I walked over to his desk and looked at what he was doing.
“I’m just taking notes, Miss,” he said, pulling his notebook towards him. But he was not quick enough; I saw “Dear Stephanie” on the top of the page before he hid it from me. I had to chuckle. Stephanie was his girlfriend who, in one of her rare guest appearances in school, happened to be sitting right next to him.
“Please put that away,” I told him. “You can do it later.”
“Okay,” he said and motioned to put his notebook back into his bag.
I continued on with the class, but noticed that several of the students were now looking in Alfredo’s direction. I followed their gazes. He was writing the love letter to Stephanie again, while she appeared to be looking over at the paper with amusement.
“Alfredo, what did I just tell you? You’re going to miss the important part—Julius Caesar’s about to get murdered!”
The kids started protesting. “Miss! You k
now if it was me you’d have taken that note away a long time ago,” one of them shouted out. He was right, of course. But I had not forgotten everything I had been told about Alfredo. I did not want to provoke him.
“Okay. Alfredo, put the note away or I’m going to take it,” I said.
Alfredo looked up at me and smirked. Again, he motioned to put the book back in his bag. He looked up right before putting it in to make sure my sight was still trained on him.
“Alfredo, put it in your backpack,” I said, sternly. Then, when I made sure he’d put it away, I said, “Great. Starting where we left off . . . who’s reading Brutus’s part again?”
We finished the reading, and I told the kids to get into trios for group work. I looked over at Alfredo, who was making no effort to join a group. He was working on his letter to Stephanie again. Presently, he ripped it out of his notebook, folded it, and reached over to pass it to Stephanie.
I got there first.
“Yoink!” I said, and plucked the folded paper from his outstretched hand. He was too surprised to stop me. Stephanie, who had not been paying attention, looked surprised, as well.
“Give that back!” he yelled.
“Alfredo, you know the rules. And I asked you multiple times to put it away,” I told him. “Now, if you do your group work like you’re supposed to, I’ll give it back to you at the end of the period.” Then I stuck the note in my pocket and went off to help the other students.
Alfredo did not join a group. Instead, he sat there sulking until the end of the period. “Stupid white bitch,” I heard him mutter to his girlfriend, who wasn’t doing group work either.
When the bell rang at the end of the period, he approached me.
“Yo, give me my note back now.”
“Alfredo, I told you that you’d get it back if you participated. But you didn’t. You sat in the back of the room talking trash,” I told him firmly. “You didn’t keep your part of the bargain, so you may not have your note back. I won’t read it, but I am throwing it out.”