I never thought I'd hear it. Not from Period Five. They love movies more than anything. In fact, just a few minutes ago, when asked whether they'd rather be abandoned on an island with a chance of rescue or locked inside a mansion for life, the majority picked house arrest. "Why?" I demanded. Their answer was simple and unanimous: Electricity. No, Ms. D, not just TV. Who do you think we are? Computers, video games, microwaves. We need them all. Movies especially.
So I'm surprised when they actually remember that I had offered them the last five minutes of class for a dance lesson. We've been watching a film of Lord of the Flies, and though none of us think it's great, we're all happy to be watching it. The students meet the actors like they are first dates with Internet matchups, putting faces and voices to well-known entities and evaluating the results. I watch it with them and realize that they know and like this book better than I'd thought. It's been a good day, and I would have been content to watch until the bell rings, but Period Five has other plans. And the plans involve teaching me to dance.
This is actually my second dance lesson today, brought on because of a very public performance earlier in the day, after which these students took it upon themselves to teach me "jerkin'," the move of the hour.
The first lesson took place in the gym a few hours ago. In response to a vague call for "teacher volunteers" at a pep assembly, I found myself in a corner of the gym with one of my more challenging students, learning from him the apparently common-knowledge routine for "Crank That," by Souljaboy. The assembly took place between third and fourth periods; he should have been in my second period, but wasn't. He frequently isn't. Our interactions consist of me reminding him that he's brilliant but that it won't matter at all if he doesn't show up. As he teaches me this dance that he somehow knows by heart, in front of the gleeful ninth grade class, I wonder if it's significant for him to be the expert here. I hope so, though of course there are no guarantees. I, too, am just showing up right now, hoping to learn and not sure that I can.
After ten minutes of practicing in front of the freshmen section--waving my finger back at ninth graders squealing with laughter and saying "Hey, no mocking!"--it was our turn to perform. We did, he with the schlumping nonchalance that looks so easy, my version a laughing and imperfect mimic. Dancing is never common-knowledge to me, nor does it come as naturally as to my more graceful sister and terribly cool brother. I'm awkward and twitchy. I make the odd, concentrating faces when I'm not laughing outright, and never seem to look as legitimate as anyone else. This was no different. I simply looked foolish in front of more people than I generally do.
"So who's teaching me?" I ask Period Five now, turning off the video. We have someone's iPod connected to the sound system, and I'm ready to try again. Suddenly they're all shrugs and eyes on shoes. Someone doesn't know how. Someone is "too white." Someone knows how but can't be seen in front of the class.
"No one? Come on. What's the problem?"
They glance around at each other, shifty and evaluating. Can they be trusted? Everyone asks silently.
"Of all classes," I remind them, "I'd think you could dance in this class." It's a class of eighteen, eighteen students who know each other's names and histories and habits more than any other class.
N finally shrugs, stands at the front of the room, and shows me the backwards skipping in slow enough motion for me to follow. They laugh at my copy, and several others stand up to show me how.
"Weren't you embarrassed?" Period Five asks. About the assembly, presumably, though I'm sure it could apply to this new dance, too, or to any number of other moments in class and out.
Embarrassed? I scroll through past pep assemblies with them. Shaving cream on my face, Ms. B is throwing Cheetos at me and trying to get the maximum to stick. J hits me on the side of the head with a volleyball. I trip over my own clogs while running in a parade around the floor. No, I shrug. It doesn't matter.
"For you it doesn't matter. You don't care what we think of you," someone says. "It's different for us."
"Come on, that's not fair. I do care what you think."
"Sure," a boy concedes. "You care, but you know we already love you."
It's an excellent point he's made, one he probably stumbled on without meaning to. High school students don't frequently admit to loving anyone--parents, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, regular friends or teachers. Not love, and certainly not out loud. And yet it's the love that's important here. Mere admiration or fearful respect might be compromised by a silly moment in an assembly, or a five-minute dance lesson at the end of class. Love, contrary and enigmatic, grows stronger in shared experience, however trivial.
I'm still learning as the bell rings, ushering in Spring Break in a room of dancing kids.
