Small America Watches the Inauguration

To everything--turn, turn, turn
There is a season--turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

The Byrds, "Turn Turn Turn"

On Tuesday morning, 35 students, two teachers and an intern stare in rapt attention at the TV on a cart at the front of Room 120. In newer schools in Seattle, TVs are mounted into the corners in every classroom, providing a convenient space for video announcements and the inevitable class movies. It's been half a century since our school counted as a "newer school," but TVs for all is one of the less bothersome implications of our school's age. I've wired (or, to be honest, found clever kids to wire) my precious media projector to every medium imaginable, running DVD players, VCRs, computers, and document cameras from the box on the ceiling to the big screen in the classroom. On 1,460 out of 1,461 days, the media setup in Room 120 works just fine. But on that last day there is a presidential inauguration.

The teacher next door has brought over the television and his class of ten, which seat themselves easily in the back of my sparse second period. There had been some rebellion when my intern, a teaching student from a nearby university who is just beginning her third week here, got up to start the class. "What?" they cried in alarm. "We're not watching the inauguration? We have to!"

Standing outside in the hall, I'd heard her calmly reassuring the students, who grumbled while they dragged out notebooks, that we would be watching in just a moment, that the real business of swearing-in would not begin for fifteen minutes. They sighed, and began to respond to the oh-so-irrelevant words on the overhead screen, lyrics to a song written ages ago, which even then were stolen from that most archaic of texts, the Bible itself! What, I had asked in the morning, could these words mean to you today? I had intended it to be a reminder that the terrors of finals week were transient, that they did not need to fear the hard work of the next week because, like all seasons, it would not last forever.

I hadn't realized, several days ago when I wrote the lesson, the other significance of the statement. And yet all day I had heard from my students not reflections on their own academic lives--no one even bothered with the stress of projects and papers today--but expressions of hope for the changes in our nation. A great collage of voices, all declaring that this morning was the beginning of a new season, that the turns they saw ahead were for the better.

As the Chief Justice begins the swearing-in of the first African American President of the United States, I sit in the back of a classroom that is a small America, full of voices and histories and ideals that undoubtedly reflect those of our nation. We wait, all 38 of us, as the hand rests on the famous Lincoln Bible, the voice we've begun to recognize repeats words we seldom hear, the oath of this office pledging one man to work in service to the welfare of a nation. Though even the youngest of us have seen the abuses of this office, we are all moved by the depth of the promises our new President is making.

It all goes by so quickly. I wonder if it feels fast to the students, who sit here enraptured by Barack Obama's first words as President; I wonder if they feel the weight of this moment, and wish to savor it as I do. And even as I consider this, I remember that I do not feel it as deeply as others must, that I have not lived long enough, nor seen the breadth of prejudice in our nation, to understand fully the meaning of this day. Still, I hold my breath and listen, longing to hold onto this moment of hope, the morning I was honored to greet a new season with my students.

Prizes

"We're reading in a minute, but first we need to play a game."

The students, in the second period of the first day back from winter break, greet my statement with mixed reviews. Some of them are wildly enthusiastic (Yes! Finally!), others confused (Good. I hate reading), and still more apathetic (Whatever. I wish some music was on.) A few, however, are instantly suspicious.

"What makes it a game?"

"Is it fun?"

"Who wins?"

These kids, clearly, have had some damaging experiences with games. The deceit of typing programs disguised as video games and lawn chores dressed like contests! The horror of enjoying a word search until the very end, when they realize that all of the words have to do with mitosis! Oh, the wickedness of parents and teachers, who hide learning in places where it doesn't belong, in the sacredness of games, which are the rightful territory only of prize-lust and Machiavellian competition! We will not be taken in, they cry, by your promise of a "game." We just finished a three-week break! We know what real games are!

Oddly, is is the three weeks of break that have necessitated the game in the first place. Our winter break, already a long two weeks, was extended even further by a snowstorm during the final three days before, so that we left on a Tuesday, not knowing that we would not return to our classes until the next year. The last week, meant to be a week of finishing and tying off, readying ourselves for a relaxing break and a productive January, had instead become a frayed and tangled disaster, full of half-classes and last-minute adjustments. Worst of all, we had not finished our play, Othello, and now had to return to it after a break longer than the entire unit, to read the final scene on a Monday morning. As the cynics had guessed, the game was not as much a game as a review exercise. Caught, I shrugged.

"Everyone wins. It's fun. So open your journals to a blank page."

"Is there a prize?" one optimist persists, while the rest of the students sigh. No real game includes journals. Everyone knows that.

"A prize," I repeat blankly. Usually I would say no, but I feel guilty about the non-game. "Um, maybe. I'll see what I have."

The mere rumor of a prize is enough to get journals pried back open, pencils ready for instruction.

"What're we doing? What do we write?"

"Oh, right," I reply. Thoughts of prizes had distracted me from giving any real directions. "I need to you write down the last thing you remember happening in Othello--" Shouts of protest drown me out "--even if the last thing you remember is 'Othello married Desdemona,' you need to write it down. But try to get later than that. As close as you can to where we left off. And whoever gets the closest to where we actually left off wins."

"And gets a prize?" they press.

"Right. Gets a prize."

While they write, I wander over to my desk, looking for objects suitable to give as a prize. There are plenty of trinkets on my bookshelf, silly objects that have no purpose and have been there forever. I examine a rubber duck, a kaleidoscope, a "scapegoat" that you push pins into, but none seem suitable for the non-game. Desperate, with students finishing their answers, I head to the closet in the back.

This closet, which with its peeling wood-grain veneer and uneven wheels is the ugliest piece of furniture that I have ever claimed as my own, is an unlikely hiding place for ninth grade prizes. As the time runs out, I snatch at the first three objects that I have enough of to last for the next few classes, and return to the front of the room.

"What is it? What's the prize?" Pencils are down, heads are up and expectant.

I've never considered myself a good salesperson. I look down at the items in my hands and realize that this is going to be the improvisation of the week.

"Well, if you win this game you get not one but TWO bookmarks." I hold them up, an online learning community's promotional bookmarks, which the librarian had given to me almost a year ago. I get most of my prizes from the librarian. The kids squint at the bookmarks. Is she kidding?

"Bookmarks," is the blank echo.

"Exactly, bookmarks. But not just a normal bookmark. These are shiny, you know, and have these nice pictures on them." At this point the kids are laughing, both at the bookmarks, which are decorated with squiggles that look something like blue and pink ladybugs, and at their serious entry into the category of acceptable game prizes. "But that's not all," I add dramatically. "Along with the two bookmarks, I have, for the winner of this fabulous game, a... plastic fork!"

I hold a clear plastic fork out to my class. They stare. A fork. She's got a fork. Really, this is too much. A fork for a prize.

"Because you never know when you might need a fork."

"No really," a voice chimes in from the back. "You never know."

And the game is on, a game again. The bookmarks and fork do not fare so well in later classes, reminding me that improvisation is probably best when it is just that, used when necessary and not forced into all situations. But here in Period 2, their energy seems to raise the temperature of the room on this snowy January morning, as kids shout out events from Othello and we put them in order, all in pursuit of two bookmarks and a fork.

Vocation Revelation

The temperature has plummeted below freezing as I stand on the sidewalk, turning lethargic and useless fingers and toes that were once pleasantly active. I have not dressed for this, I think to myself, shoving my hands deep into the pockets of a wool jacket. I'm listening to Christmas music on headphones, standing on Fourth Avenue in downtown Seattle, surrounded by a swarm of irritated shoppers, all marooned in a slushy city two days before Christmas. Grimy grey snow turns the streets to hardened arteries, slowing traffic to a standstill and somehow eating most of the city's Metro buses. Every other bus is headed back to the terminal, and most of the ones stopping at this ill-fated stop are headed north to the suburbs. Of the three buses that go back to my neighborhood, the rumor on the street is that only one is still running.

I'm thinking ironically of the newspaper article I read a few days ago, back when we were still in the part of the storm when school should have been happening. It was called "Five Antidotes to Cabin Fever," and it listed five charming distractions available to families after they took the bus to downtown Seattle. The comments under the online version became increasingly annoyed over the next few days, as the buses stop running and downtown becomes something of a trap. You can get here, for work or play or shopping, but you may be stuck down there until the snow melts.

I peer up the hill, south along Fourth, there is a bus in the distance, and I vow that if it is not my bus I'll walk home. It is a foolish vow, one easily broken, but I'm just cold and irritated enough to attempt it. I have no idea how far it is, really, or how exactly I'll get there. I know that between here and home there are several rather busy arterial roads and at least one gigantic bridge, which may or may not have a sidewalk. The other alternative is a bike path through train yards. I am cold enough and mad enough to do either, if this bus is not the right one.

"TO TERMINAL" reads the bus.

"We've been abandoned!" I wail. "That's it. I'm walking."

This statement, made aloud for no particular reason, catches the attention of a woman standing nearby. She is much older than I am, wearing a knit hat, thick ski gloves, and shiny red vinyl shoes. She looks up.

"Are you going to Magnolia?" she asks then, not waiting for a reply, declares, "I'll go with you."

This is a surprise, and not entirely a pleasant one. To my shame, I am often a genuine representation of my city, outwardly friendly for extremely brief encounters. This will not be a brief encounter; our remote corner of the city is not close, by any means. A better part of me scolds the aloof part soundly, and I pull the headphones out of my ears and stuff them in a pocket. I'm going on a trek with a stranger.

We talk for a while about the weather. This is crazy weather for Seattle, we agree. The buses are deeply flawed, and the disservice done to a whole neighborhood is unforgivable. We walk along the bus route hopefully, checking in with the stranded at every stop, asking for news of buses and feeling vindicated in our decision when we learn that none have come in hours.

As we near the edges of the skyscrapers, we begin to talk about work. I learn that she is a weaver and works from home, but this seems like a recent career change. Before I can gain any further details, she turns the question back on me.

"What do you do?"

It is only much later that I will be surprised at the difference three years has made in the answer to this question. The words are the same, of course, but the tone, the posture, the feeling behind them has all transformed. I used to shrug resignedly, even sigh, my tone all embarrassment and apology. I felt plain and common, and projected judgments from my interrogators back onto myself. Today, the words come easily and proudly.

"I'm a schoolteacher. I teach ninth grade English."

"A teacher!" my walking companion sighs delightedly. "I was a teacher. I taught high school French. I loved teaching high school."

"What was your favorite grade to teach?"

"Tenth. They know... nothing. They are just so awful. But so wonderful, you know? So much fun."

I do know. Incredible, the sense of understanding that comes with a shared vocation! We compare notes of her girls' Catholic school to my urban public one. We praise snow days, the delight of loving them as adults, beginning to reconcile with the snow that has necessitated this quest. We talk about language and literature, learning and travel with young people. For miles and miles, a discussion of teaching carries two teachers from downtown along the waterfront as the winter sun sets.

When we part ways in Magnolia, I walk home amazed by the conversation. I have been so unsure about and hurt by teaching in the past that I have hesitated to even admit that I work at a school, much less claim the title of "teacher." Today, I have spent hours telling and hearing stories about students. I think of my students and my school, every day there, with fondness and affection. Not because it is easy, though certainly it is easier now than it was. Without knowing how, I have grown into this calling, beginning to love it out of more than mere duty.

Othello

I am watching a student's head this morning.

The classroom echoes hollowly with the tripping syllables of ninth graders reading various parts of Othello aloud to one another, one at at a time. We are two days into a three-week taste of Shakespeare, and already I am sensing that it will be a challenge for first period, especially.

The students of Period One are well-mannered and docile, charmingly supportive of one another and compliant in even the most tedious of homework assignments. They have the highest grade average of all of my classes, and usually I am incredibly pleased with them. Our class frequently ends with an expression of thanks, on my part, for the twenty or so students that have begun the day on such a cordial note. I like this class. I am grateful for this class.

Still, this is not the class that will love Othello, or any piece of literature pulled from the centuries-old canon, dusted off, and sold to high schoolers as important. I've already given them the speech, revealed the secrets of education that they will be expected to know once they graduate. "You'll be at these parties, folks, in fifteen years, and someone will say something about Shakespeare and they'll expect YOU to be able to have a conversation about it! What are you going to say?" They shrug.

"What kind of parties have people talking about Shakespeare?" mumbles a skeptic.

"Not the kind I'm going to, that's for sure," grumbles a second.

My promises of cultural literacy are lost on them, these sleepy first students of the day, for whom dreams of being executives and actresses require too much imagination, too early in the morning. Nor are they impressed, overall, with the story in comparison to the amount of work it takes to understand it through the mists of 16th century English.

So, as a few brave students wade through Act I, Scene 3, I'm closely watching one student, trying to trace the progress of one of my biggest Shakespeare critics. At first he holds the book lightly, as if it is filthy and he is afraid to touch too much of it with his hands. He rests his elbows on the table, propping the pages barely open with his thumbs. I can't imagine how he can see any of the words. Irritated sighs occasionally flutter the pages in front of him.

After a few lines, he slumps over the top of the desk, straightening his arms until his hands and wrists dangle, palm up, off the front of his desk. His head attracts the most interest: he has placed his face--nose, eyes, and mouth--between the still-open pages of the book. I stare at my student incredulously for a moment, until I remember that the teacher stare only works if the students can still see me. This one is clearly hiding.

"Hey," I whisper. "Wake up." He's only a few feet from me, and I can hear his words through the barrier of pages:

"I AM awake," he grumbles. "I'm reading."

* * *

I love teaching Shakespeare plays to this group of students, to new teenagers in the city, even though the first time they open the books, littered with notes and unpleasant syntax, they look up at me with expressions of betrayal and bewilderment, as if I'd just handed out Camus in the original French. "Don't worry!" I crow. "It'll be hard at first but it'll get easier soon! Stick with it."

I can remember feeling that lost. I recall reading Shakespeare on buses and checking notes every other line, trying desperately to make sense of the thick blank verse, or lying on the top bunk of a dorm room and spending hours on just a few pages of Milton criticism. I hear Chaucer's Middle English, as a professor read "Canterbury Tales" aloud to us in the evenings of a study abroad trip, and we struggled to keep awake. Struggled to find our way out of the thickets of confusion created by too-old language on too-young ears.

But I also know, because I have been lost before, the deep satisfaction and sense of genius that comes when we finally begin to understand. Every year, I am surprised by the students who show up every day during these difficult sections of the class, ready to roll up their sleeves and work incredibly hard at decoding this story that they never imagined they would be able to read. I feel like a revolutionary, initiating these young people into a discussion that has been unfairly dominated by academia for hundreds of years. I'll never forget the college professor who, when asked why she had never taught secondary school, shuddered and said, "I don't even know if high schoolers can learn literature." I was horrified, and perhaps I have been working ever since to prove her wrong.

Because they learn it. Today I taught Othello using Lego men and a photograph of Venice. I drew a map of the Mediterranean and traced the movements of Venetian and Turkish fleets. Students pointed to one another to explain the complicated web of lies and love that makes this story brilliant and difficult. It is not theory or criticism, not restricted to theme or technique or characterization. There are days that I long to retreat, away from the noise and apathy and discipline, back to school, to get a degree that earns me the right to teach motivated students in a quiet college classroom somewhere. But these days are filled with reasons to read Shakespeare and Lego men and boys falling asleep with books on their faces and kids who will grow up feeling they can learn anything. And I'm glad, once again, that I'm still here.

Thirteen Hours

Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. ... Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare. Jeremiah 29:5,7

Just outside the classroom windows, past the handprint of some warm student desperate for fresh air, the sunset is glorious at five minutes to five. A glow hides behind the ridge that separates the Bitter Lake neighborhood from the sea, and I can imagine away all the barriers, hundreds of miles of them, between us and the Pacific Ocean, where doubtless a grand show is going on.

The sight is so spectacular that I rifle through my purse for a moment and fish out a camera, determined to capture the moment. It is only when I have the scene framed in a digtal screen that I realize an artistic dilemma. At the top is the sky, shot through with color and clouds that slant toward the brightest point, a grammar-school version of a sunset that I've only seen in Crayola. Beneath the child's sky are a few scrawny trees left after the Bitter Lake apartment complexes. Among the trees shine the streetlights and the neon signs of the Upper Aurora business district; Outback Steakhouse and Abbey Party Rentals peirce the trees' even silhouettes. In the foreground of the screen stands the rest of my school, the Auto Shop and the covered walkways, enveloped for a construction project in chain-link fence and grey-painted plywood. I zoom in and out, cutting off the rough edges and then embracing them again, battling with myself over whether or not to put my school in the picture. I take two pictures, resolving to decide later what to do with them.




I'll have plenty of time to think. Today is a thirteen-hour Tuesday, but the hours are not filled in a way to make them move quickly. The first six are the regular pace, as I hop from page to page of A Raisin in the Sun, discussing race and relationships with ninth graders. I even give up my role as "narrator" today (drab reader of stage directions) to four students, who embue the role with tonal commentaries all their own. I revel in the sound of teenagers of all backgrounds pronouncing the specific and dailectic drama of Lorraine Hansberry; in their multicultural voices, a play about prejudice, family, and ethnic identity becomes the most relevant work we've encountered yet. They love it, and I love it with them. The regular school day, though occasionally challenging, is teaching at its most enjoyable.

The next seven hours are uneven and mysterious. I copy edit the student newspaper, discussing dangling participles and whether or not the "party" of the Democratic Party should be capitalized. I sort the contents the rolling journalism cart (a metal shelving unit with wheels, where I tend to stack old newspapers at random), and some students and I spend several minutes poring over pasted-up issues from the 1980s. We decide that we're grateful for computers. I discuss responsible student journalism with a ruffled editor-in-chief who is smarting over this article in the Seattle Times. I reread the completed parts of the paper, this time nervously scanning the page for the slanderous remarks that have put this other school in such deep touble. Later, when most of the students leave, I remain with a few layout editors, offering lollipops like a Kindergarten teacher, which pleases these hardworking seniors to a remarkable degree.

After a while even they go home, leaving me with two more hours to spend in an empty classroom, waiting for the evening meeting at the end of this long day. I sweep the floor. Go to McDonalds near the mall for some Dollar Menu supper. Watch a movie for class tomorrow while eating a chicken sandwich and fries. It is all very quiet, very plain. At six thirty, I make a cup of tea and go down to the cafeteria, where the meeting is taking place.

This is no ordinary meeting. It is, instead, a public hearing regarding a building project that our school district began two years ago. The proposed project is to add a new twelve-classroom wing, replacing rickety portable structures at the cost of part of a forest adjacent to the school. The project has been contested since its inception, and tonight is the culmination of the conflict, a place where a magic podium gives voice to all.

As I enter the cafeteria, which is beginning to fill with an odd mixture of irate neighbors and sign-bearing teenagers, I realize that this day has not been glamorous, by any stretch. This meeting seems in many ways the height of all things mundane. There will be no "Sex and the City" episode of this day. No one but me would care to write about it. I could write about the beauty of democracy, I suppose, but in truth democracy consists most purely in places and forums like this, in cafeterias that still smell like lunch, with people who aren't out doing the things that make it into sitcoms. There is nothing here that I could paint in a picture, nothing I could even write a poem about. Public hearings are prose-only situations.

I have to go back to the classroom for extra copies of the student newspaper, which features an article titled "TIMBER?!" on the cover. When I come back, I find that the once-empty seats around me have filled with students. Only a few speakers into the meeting, I realize the benefit of sitting on the "kid side" of the room. Each opinion is met with passion from the young adults around me. With great pride and admiration, I watch my students--many of them seniors who will never see the proposed improvements--take the podium. They are articulate and well-informed, and back in the seats they respond even to those with whom they disagree with efforts at understanding. I, wraith of a teacher exhausted in the thirteenth hour, am suddenly content.

I am struck by the importance of truth, even more than beauty. This is not a spectacular moment by many standards, not one that I would have chosen. This meeting springs out of controversy that costs our school district and our students both time and money. And yet, sitting in a cafeteria surrounded by young people learning to participate in their community, I don't want to miss a second.

When I come home, I find the whole photograph. Sunset, trees, lights, and building project.

Things My Students Say #3

Me: Do you want to hear something exciting?

Students: Sure... Yeah, tell us something.

Me: Think about how old you are.

Student: 14!

Me: In your head. Do you have it?

Students nod.

Me: OK, add four. Are you voting in the next election? Happy or sad, are you getting involved?

Students cheer!

* * *

Student: Ms. D, did you know that if all the states were the same, then McCain would have beat Obama?

Me: Sure. I mean, that doesn't make sense. They're NOT all the same.

Student: I know. I'm just saying. Gosh.

* * *

Me: Good morning, Period Two! Please get out your journals. OK, we're writing New Quarter Resolutions today. Who knows what a resolution is?

Student: (raises hand) OBAMA!

Pay No Attention to the Rat in the Corner

It's Monday morning, and my students and I are sleepy as I put up the next artifact. We have been analyzing various "artifacts" for their tone. It's been fun, since the artifacts are multimedia; the first three were songs, the next are pictures, and later we'll watch some movie clips and read from the novels we've studied. My students, predictably, are excited to watch any amount of a movie on a Monday morning, no matter how brief or unsatisfying. I, also predictably, am excited to talk about tone, this sophisticated literary concept that I've never quite gotten to with ninth graders. This will be the year, I think optimistically, as I provide mini-definitions for words like "sardonic" (dark and sarcastic) and "lugubrious" (sad... really sad... kind of ridiculously sad).

I like talking about tone because it is a concept that we can carry beyond the abstractions of literature into the broader world of all artistic expression. I daydream about these kids, in eight years, standing in the Tate Modern in London and discussing the tone of cubist paintings. Then they will go to a cafe and discuss the tone of Ezra Pound as opposed to T.S. Eliot, before taking their tone-aware selves to the movies, where they will undoubtedly be watching for shots, acting, and setting that denotes a specific attitude toward life, the world, suffering, etc. Tone, in other words, is the gateway into several conversations that deeply interest me.

As we finish up with the three songs--all from movie scores, all instrumental--I put up a picture. It is from a masterpiece picture book, loaned to me by our zealous librarian, called The Arrival. The pictures are dusky, hazy dreamworlds, each filled with a play of light and darkness that inspires and delights. I want to sit with this book for hours, just making up stories. So, on the document camera, anticipating their squeals of appreciation, I share the first picture with my students.

"OK," I say, watching them shift in their seats to see the picture reflected on the overhead screen, "Write down some words to decribe the tone of this picture. Then, write down--specifically--what about this picture gives it that tone?"

I expect them to begin writing immediately, since the picture is a glowing scene of a family eating supper together. The tone seems clear to me. Instead, they are staring, perplexed, at the screen. I glance back at the picture and see the problem.

In the corner of the picture is a large creature that can only be described as a rat. It doesn't exactly look like a rat, since it is as big as a dog and has batlike ears, but it is pale in color and has a long, ratlike tail. It lingers in the corner of the happy family tableau, smiling and perhaps hoping to catch a scrap from the table. If it were a dog, it would fit easily into the scene. But it's not, not a dog.

"Um," I hesitate, wondering if I should draw attention to the alien creature. "OK, to do this right, I need you to not worry about the big rat in the corner. It's not there. Can you do that?"

Students are shaking their heads. No, we can't to that. Of course we can't. There's a sort-of rat in this picture! That changes everything.

I have to laugh, and resist the temptation to turn this experience into a metaphor for some aspect of life or teaching. Some kind of elephant-in-the-room scenario. But I won't. Because for now it's too funny, too ridiculous, the contrast between my rather pretentious tone lesson and my students, valiantly trying and obviously failing to ignore the giant rat-thing that drives out all thoughts of high literary jargon, pulling them from abstraction into bizarre imaginations.