Dessert
I like dessert.
I like cake.
I like pie.
And I love ice cream.
I put down the Magic Marker and said to Hannah, ‘I’m going to read this story of yours now, okay?’
She nodded and I put my hand under the title. ‘Dessert’. My hand moved to the first line as I read slowly and with as much feeling as I could get into it, ‘I – like – cake,’ my hand underlining each word as I read it. When I reached the last line I read it with even more emotion. ‘And I love ice cream.
‘Okay, now, Hannah. It’s your turn. We’ll start right here with the title.’ I took her hand and placed it under the word at the top of the paper.
‘Dessert?’ she asked uncertainly, looking at me.
‘Yes, sure. Now look here. See, this is the word, right? These are the letters that make the word “dessert”: D-E-S-S-E-R-T.’ I wasn’t concerned with word-attack skills. All I wanted was for Hannah to get the idea that letters made up words and that every spoken word had its written counterpart. I drew her fingers along, beneath the letters.
‘Dessert,’ she said.
‘Yes, indeed.’ I moved her hand to the next line and placed it under the first word.
‘I. I know letter, that I … E-F-G-H-I.’
‘Yes. You’re right. It’s the letter “I” and it’s the word “I”. Now look here. What did you say you like?’
‘I like cake.’ I moved Hannah’s hand beneath the words as she said them.
‘Great. Good. Now the next line.’ I placed her hand below the third line of printing.
‘I … I like pie.’
Excitement was catching in her voice as comprehension crept in. The words were her words. The words on the paper were the words she had spoken.
‘And,’ she shouted, ‘I love ice cream!’
‘Well, what do you know, hotshot? You read the whole story.’
‘Do it again, teacher. Read. You read.’
Hannah was so excited now she couldn’t stand still. She jumped up and down in little hops beside me as I read the page again, underlining each word as I said it.
‘Me. I. Me … No. I read story now.’
Over and over Hannah read her story, each time more pleased, until finally I said, ‘We forgot something. You wrote the story. It’s your story. The person who writes the story always signs it.’
I handed Hannah the felt pen and slowly, carefully, she lettered ‘Hannah’ on the bottom of the page. Then she turned to me.
‘Hang up. Hang up story, teacher.’
I taped Hannah’s story to the front wall of our classroom, beside Jamie’s pictures and Rufus and Brian’s papers.
Now we had more of Hannah in our room than just her name beneath her coat hook. Her story hung on the wall with the others.
I used anything I could think of to keep Hannah going during this first white-hot excitement of learning. Best and Worst, the doll family – repetition of her words to show her that I heard what she was saying and that I considered it vitally important, important enough to write down. I wanted to give her all the feedback that I could, good accurate feedback to show her, without saying it, that she was good and was getting even better, as a yardstick with which to measure herself.
Hannah wrote story after story until finally there was no more space on the walls of our room. She loved each story better than the one before and walked the floor reading them out loud to herself.
We wrote them all in the same manner as we had the first one, and though the sentences grew a little longer and the words somewhat more varied, they were all essentially the same. They were all about things that were important to Hannah, like coloured chalk, red and yellow marbles, our housekeeping corner, blocks, the doll family, her own family.
From the stories, she copied individual words on to index cards. She kept these cards in bundles, bound with rubber bands, inside her cubby. Every day she laid her cards out on the floor and practised them. Later she brought them to me so that I could hear her say them.
This type of reading now has the formal name Language Experience. Whole volumes have been written about it and the ‘word banks’ (Hannah’s index cards in a recipe box) that accompany it and its effectiveness as a method of teaching reading.
It’s a good way to learn to read. It’s personal, exciting, and highly individualised and always has been. From the beginning of our written language men have been telling stories, writing them down, and then reading and re-reading them.
There are only a couple of things to check to make sure this type of reading instruction works. First, the child should be a visual rather than an auditory learner and have good visual memory skills. Second, the word bank should be checked against the Dolch sight words (200 most common words) and then against graded vocabulary lists, which can be made up from the vocabulary in the back of any basal reading series.
Most of the words that come naturally from a child’s speech will be duplicated in these lists, but it’s helpful to have the lists to make sure that the child is moving forward at a steadily increasing level of difficulty. And last – the only thing that is really important – it must be fun.
When there was no more room left on the walls, we began to make books. We wrote Hannah’s stories on blank paper that I lined on one side, punched with holes across the top, and put between two shirt cardboards. I laced the pages together with yarn. Hannah drew with crayons on the cardboard cover and then drew on the blank side of the paper to make a picture for the story beneath it. Hannah’s books pleased me almost as much as they did Hannah, and I took them to the Director and to staff meetings.
I rejoiced in Hannah’s talking even more than in the reading or writing. Her speech was still limited and she stuttered slightly; in her eagerness, syntax remained unfathomable. But if grammatical expression was poor, style and content were superb.
Happiness bubbled and surfaced at Best and Worst and enchanted the boys as well as me.
‘Best thing today Grandpa.’ Sparklers light inside Hannah’s eyes and tiny firecrackers of laughter go off in her throat.
‘What about Grandpa?’
‘Grandpa live downstairs. Grandpa cross. Make everybody mind. Make everybody do thing he want. Make Mama cook dinner every day five o’clock. Make Mama shut windows, pull down shades. Make Mama sit living-room downstairs till he go sleep. Make me stay kitchen. Boss Mama. Boss Helen. Boss me. Boss Carl, too.’
Hannah stops and shakes her head.
‘But Little Caesar no mind him.’ Her laughter begins again. She’s so pleased with something, she can’t contain it.
‘Who’s Little Caesar?’ Rufus wants to know.
‘Little Caesar Grandpa’s dog. Grandpa scare Little Caesar, too. Last night Little Caesar fix Grandpa.’
Hannah looks us over, making sure she has our full attention before she whips out the climax of the story.
‘Caesar bark go out. Grandpa yell, not let Caesar out, Caesar pee on Grandpa’s light cord. Light cord broken. Caesar pee.
Whoozz! Fuiei! Arf! Arf! All fireworks. No lights. Mama say Caesar he short-circuit Grandpa.’
What a story! The boys even let Hannah run over her allotted five minutes, they were so enchanted with her tale.
After we had finished Best and Worst, Hannah got a pencil and drew the story. The two-family house, Grandpa’s living-room, the broken light cord, and a short, wiry-looking dog with one leg raised. Then we wrote it down, another story for her book. It was my favourite, but all her stories were vivid and complete.
If there was buoyancy and joy inside Hannah, there was also seething rage. At least three or four times a week Hannah’s anger exploded in our classroom, leaving desolation in its wake.
It was impossible to determine the cause of Hannah’s anger. There seemed to be no common factor to what set the fuse or to the magnitude of explosion. Sometimes it was as small a thing as a crayon that broke under too much pressure. Hannah would try to put it b
ack together; when this failed, she would hurl it – and the remaining crayons – across the room. She grunted, tore at her hair, and eventually went down on to the floor on her hands and knees to alternately rock and bang her head against the floor.
Sometimes the anger was caused by more than a small frustration. Sometimes one of the other children, particularly one of Patty’s girls, would steal her lunch, ridicule her, or tease her beyond endurance. Occasionally a volunteer aide from another classroom (we had yet to be assigned an aide, the Director commenting that we seemed to be doing fine without one) or a parent, or another teacher would ask her to do something beyond her capabilities. Immediately Hannah would burst, and the party or play would be destroyed.
It wasn’t right and I knew it. It wasn’t fair to the other children or to Hannah herself, but I didn’t know how to control it.
Anger was no stranger to me. Fear and loneliness and anger were daily enemies, All the children came locked within walls built of these ingredients, and I’d learned to acknowledge and deal with my own emotions as well as the children’s.
It was the extent of Hannah’s anger that was so difficult – that and the self-destruction. When she began to pound her head against the hard tile floor, she did it with such intensity that it seemed as though she wanted to crack it open and rid herself of the demons that drove her.
I talked to the Director. I talked to the psychiatrist and the psychologist. Their answers were the same, ‘You seem to be on the right track, Mary. Hannah’s doing so well. You can’t expect things to happen too quickly.’
But I wasn’t on the right track and I knew it deep in my bones. I was doing it wrong, and I longed for someone to help us both.
When the anger struck I went to Hannah, wanting to be near her, to protect her against the ravages of her own rage. I held her from behind, pinioning her arms so that she was unable to throw chairs or attack, me. As she slipped towards the floor I stayed with her, trying to soften the driving head blows. But nothing seemed to help. Although she was eating, talking and reading, anger ruled her and poisoned our classroom.
The boys retreated when Hannah’s anger struck. They were frightened and upset. They hated it when their own families fought, and now to have this raging emotion in our classroom almost every day was too much.
After a weekend of almost solid walking (I walk when I need to think), I decided that Hannah was manipulating me. Just as she had been a tyrant in her home and in previous schools on almost every issue, so she was now using rage in our room and I was letting her get away with it.
There was a gut feeling of truth to this, but I needed more. What to do? Go back, think back to the beginning. How did I first meet Hannah? What was my approach? How did I decide to handle her?
The immediacy of our school is such that it’s hard to find time to remember. Days are filled with the sounds of children and skyrockets of emotion and there is no time for the slow, cool pause of reflection.
Coolness. Tranquillity … That was it. Reason. I needed to approach Hannah with reason. Her intelligence: that was my first idea for approach, deciding to reach Hannah through her intelligence.
And instead I had been caught up in emotion. She had trapped me in the heat and intensity of her feelings, and my emotions had been aiding and abetting her own.
Hannah had seduced me into joining her. My support, my attention, had heightened the outbursts rather than modulating them.
On Monday morning, after Best and Worst, I said, ‘There isn’t going to be any more yelling, screaming, throwing, or whatever in this room. I will give one warning to whoever is doing whatever it is that I don’t like, and then if he or she continues I’ll take away a privilege.’
We spent another hour making up the lists of privileges. Another project went undone. Never mind, forget the Thanksgiving favours we were going to make.
The list-making was a long, cool, logical process and it was just what we needed. First on the blackboard, then on chart paper, we listed three ‘privileges’ for each child. Each list was different, and all four children helped compile each list. Hannah’s was as follows:
HANNAH’S PRIVILEGES
Coloured chalk
Housekeeping corner
Dessert
Simple things, but our lives were made up of simple things. These were all things that Hannah liked, but most of all she liked dessert. The new plan was to work like this: If Hannah threw a book, I was to say, ‘Hannah, pick it up. Get back to work. This is a warning.’
All the children felt very strongly about having a warning. They readily accepted losing privileges for poor behaviour, but only if there was one clear warning first.
If, say, Hannah continued to throw things, I was to say, ‘No coloured chalk today, Hannah. You’ve lost that privilege.’
If she stopped, that was all. If she continued, she was then to lose the privilege of playing in the housekeeping corner, and if she still continued she would lose her favourite, her beloved dessert.
There were many weaknesses to the plan. But at least we had a course of action and we’d worked it out together. It was to go into effect immediately.
Five minutes after we got up from the discussion, Hannah grabbed first one record out of Jamie’s hands and then another and lost the privilege of coloured chalk. Two minutes later she lost the privilege of playing in the housekeeping corner. This subdued her, though, and she sat sullenly on the stoop as the boys and I played ball in the driveway before lunch.
The rest of the day was uneventful and it seemed we were on the right track. No longer was I drawn into Hannah’s anger; no longer did I feed it, reward it. Instead, I dealt with it coolly, from across the room.
The rest of the week worked as well. Almost every day, or at least every other day, Hannah lost one or two privileges. Jamie once lost two, Rufus one, Brian none at all. Instead, Brian drew his telethon on the blackboard, where he restored as prizes all the privileges that were lost.
On Friday, Hannah worked well for the first hour and then stormed through the second. There went the coloured chalk, followed by the housekeeping corner. I had to concentrate to keep my voice cool as she gouged her pencil into Jamie’s clay letters that had taken him half an hour to make, and I said, ‘Okay, Hannah. You just blew dessert.’
At first she didn’t believe I meant it, but when everyone was served except her, she threw a tantrum on the floor beside the lunch table and then another in the classroom after lunch. There was still no dessert, however.
Little by little, it dawned on Hannah that I meant what I said. There was no longer any way to draw the rest of us into her passion, to control and manipulate us with her rage. Now anger made her the loser.
Day after day Hannah blew dessert, and finally she wept. But softly. The storms of rage subsided into small rivers of tears.
Hannah’s mother arrived unexpectedly after school one day, and I rose in surprise to greet her. Although we had had several conferences and many, many phone calls, she had never come in unannounced, of her own volition, before.
Now she stood in the doorway, surveying the empty classroom, looking at me as I walked towards her. I wanted to show her Hannah’s stories, pictures, books. But she clearly had no time for anything but what was on her mind.
‘What,’ she demanded, no longer hesitant, no longer shy, ‘what is this blue dessert?’
‘Well –’ I began.
Mrs Rosnic was obviously agitated and she interrupted. ‘What you doing? All afternoon, all night, she howl about blue dessert, blue dessert, till it drive us all crazy. I give her blueberry pie. I try grape soda. But she yell, “No! No! Blue dessert. Blue dessert.” I tell you – whatever – give to her. Here. I pay for it. Whatever. Just give to her the blue dessert so she stop the noise and we got peace.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay, come on in, Mrs Rosnic. I’ll show you what it is.’
Her broad, kind face creased in puzzlement as I got Hannah’s chart of privileges down from the wall.
‘Come on in,’ I said. ‘Please. This blue dessert is going to take a while.’
Chapter 11
The first snow of the year fell at night, so softly, so quietly, that I didn’t even know that it had snowed until I woke the next morning. By then the sun was out making fractured rainbow patterns on the icy surface and the world was wrapped in glitter white like a big Christmas present begging to be opened.
School was a mass of confusion. Buses were late or nonexistent. The phone rang constantly in the Director’s office. Parents, children, bus drivers milled around as I pushed through searching for Henry, our janitor, gardener and friend. I needed to find the mission boxes.
The ladies of the church brought their families’ worn-out clothing for the ‘mission boxes’, and here, with the help of Henry, I stole clothes for the children whenever I needed them.
During the winter while the flowers lay dormant under snow or frozen ground, Henry hibernated in a corner of the furnace room. He worked a little during the middle of the day, making small repairs around the church or polishing the wooden cabinets in the kitchen. But mornings and afternoons he spent reading or dozing, dry and warm in an old chair near the furnace.
Sometimes I took my morning coffee and sat with him, studying the pictures that he pointed out in his seed catalogues or telling him about the children. Now I called to him impatiently. ‘Hey, Henry, where did you put the mission boxes? I’m going to need some things.’
The children had warm clothes of their own, but their parents often forgot boots or gloves or an extra sweater in the turmoil of getting ready for school. Besides, they had no way of knowing that I’d take the children outside in the snow.
Henry led me upstairs to rows of cartons stacked on the back of the stage behind dark velvet curtains. They were full to the brim and we sorted through them, picking out scarves, warm sweaters, mittens.
‘One more hat and I’m all set, Henry. Oh, good!’
Henry held up a small red knit cap with a missing tassel. ‘Be good for the boy. The little fellow.’
‘Jamie. Yes. You’ve got a good eye, Henry. It should be just right. Thanks for helping me. Does it bother you, my taking these clothes from church boxes?’
Lovey Page 8