mad

the ninth graders fascinate me. i like to tell their stories because they are so strange and usually humbling for me and mostly funny. and when i write about the group they’re all there, the whole pile, but i’ve noticed a bit lately that when i write about a single child or maybe a small group i focus on the boys in my class. there are a few reasons for that and i figure it might help you to know why before we visit about this next child. maybe it won’t help at all. it’s here if you’d like.

1. i did not really understand girls when i was in high school and i haven’t made much progress in the last 25 years. high school girls are a bit of a mystery to me.
2. the girls who do connect with me tend to be girls whose stories i simply wouldn’t share with others in specific detail. they tend to be of two types. i am somehow a magnet for broken little girls, especially those whose fathers or uncles or neighbors have done unspeakable things to scar them for life. they communicate with me through notes scribbled in pencil on irregularly folded wads of paper. they speak to me in private. they feel adrift in their own bodies. and because i am vocal in class about civil rights, including those for the gay community, i am often a confidante for girls who are struggling to find a way to say out loud that they like other girls. i will not tell them there is something wrong with them, nor will i tell them god will hate them.
3. boys in ninth grade are, very simply, the funniest things i have ever seen.

so we will get on now to the story, to the child, a ninth grade boy. he has wandered through at least another story or two and will likely leap into things i write in the future. he is my nemesis. he is my favorite for now. he talks in class and fidgets and touches others and is generally one of those children who takes on the same role in life as allergies or a cough that never quite goes away. never acute, never completely overwhelming, but always exasperating. and when i ask him (three or four or nine times a day) to stop talking, he is always indignant, must always respond with some long-winded explanation of how i misunderstood the fact that he was turned entirely around in his seat emitting a sound that was strikingly like his own voice but clearly wasn’t because he himself was certainly not talking when i accused him of it. and when i tire of this particular conversation and invite him to “step into my office”- the hall outside our classroom- he slams his books, shoves his chair back with all the dramatic flair he can muster and stomps toward the door muttering about how i am always accusing him of things he doesn’t do because i am not at all fair. he sprinkles this monologue with all the bad words he knows in two different languages.

because there is another teacher in the room, i am able to spend quality time in my office with struggling students. i should be charging this child rent, he’s there so often. today i move his seat after four suggestions that he control his situation so i won’t have to. he does not like his new seat and determines that acting like he’s lost his mind in that new seat just might get him rearranged to another, more desirable, seat. this does not work out quite as he plans and he finds himself in the hallway, glaring at the wall above my head, arms crossed. i say plenty. i say all the words i usually say in these situations. i say the honest things about how he needs to work all the time because he’s reading several years behind his peers, how it’s not because he’s stupid, how trying just a little might surprise him with impressive results. because i think those things are true. while i roll out this string of words he zips his coat up to the neck and shoves his face down inside. spiky hair. glasses. coat. and as those words float by him he gets madder and madder and madder until he whips his head up, pulls his coat down and yells I DON’T WANT TO BE SMART. STOP SAYING THAT! and the part of me that will someday get me punched square in the face yells right back that what he wants is of no interest to me, that he’s smart whether he likes it or not and that there’s nothing at all he can do about it. children do not like being told there’s nothing they can do about something. he wants me to feel helpless now too, so he tells me when he finishes high school he wants to “hang out”. he likes watching my face when he says it because he knows i want him to say something about college and what lies beyond college. “i hate school!” he growls. “i don’t want to be smart and i hate all my classes. i hate this class.” he pauses for effect. i am thinking about how he must know he’s smart if he’s saying he doesn’t want to be smart and he delivers what he intends to be the final blow. he says it through clenched teeth in this low voice that is somehow yelling while being horrifyingly quiet. “i hate you!”

but i heard those words my very first day of school way back in 1993 when a little boy named ronald threatened to slit my throat. the wind whipping through an open window at the end of the hall blows them right off me and they fall onto the dirty tile floor. “those are sad little lies!” i laugh. “i know you and i know this is your favorite class.” i pause just like he did but i’m older and far more accustomed to getting this right. “and you can say what you want but i know i’m your favorite teacher. so there.” so there. i am fighting like a child, now. and i think his face will split open right then and there. he is seething. now, i have no idea how he really feels about almost anything and i do not think for a minute i am actually his favorite teacher at all but i do know he’s a little bit scared about the responsibility hovering over a smart child. he returns to his litany of complaints. i single him out. i am unfair. i am mean. he does not correct my wrong assumptions.

i do expect more from him because i know as long as i do, he will work toward whatever i insist on. i consider trying to explain this but he is enjoying being mad, i think. i can see him struggling to stay in character. i try to offer him an option that allows us to return to class but before i can say what it might be he waves his hands at me dismissively and says, “no deals.” “fine,” i say. “i’m going back inside. you can come in when you’re ready to be smart.” he walks toward the door. “you ready to be smart?” he huffs and flaps his arms in exasperation. “NO!” he stomps to the other side of the hall, arms crossed. this is a temper tantrum. he is two. “fine. i’m still going back inside. you’re not.” i open the door. he walks to the door and glares at me. “promise,” i say. he shakes his head. he wants to come in, wants to be smart, but does not want to concede just to get those things. ordinarily i make it easy for a child to obtain grace but with this kid i’m not able to. “then you can’t come in.” “whatever. fine,. okay.” he snarls as he walks in and stomps to his seat. okay is as close as i’m going to get to “you were right. i’m smart.” i’ll take it.

the rest of the class is getting ready to talk about editing and for the first few minutes he is glowing with hatred. he puffs like a bellows. it takes him a very long time to slam himself back into his seat, slam his notebook open, slam his pencil on the notebook and then slam his hand on the desk for good measure. i ask a question and he is chattering away to the child next to him. “that’s what i mean,” i say quietly, looking at him, and he gets it. we continue. a few questions later i ask them something and nobody has a clue what i mean. silence. eyes on desks. a child near the board taps his pen on his desk with an impressive lack of rhythm. feet shuffle. angry child raises his hand. he still looks angry but he can’t help himself. he knows something nobody else knows and that feels better than any amount of fury he’s been able to muster up. and when he says the right answer i quickly say, “and that is also what i mean.” and he gets that, too. and the thing about boys this age is that you can watch all the ugliness drain out of their faces in seconds. sometimes you can watch them trying to catch it and shove it all back in, keep it there, but it slips away from them too quickly. and the part of this child he’d scrunched down all day comes crashing up into the face of him and he goes beyond happy right on over to smug. that quick. for that little. for exactly what i’d offered him in the hall that he’d tossed aside.

the last part of class is his. he shares ideas when he can, which is pretty often. if his hand is up and i call on someone else, he becomes incensed. insulted. and there are days, plenty of them, where i think no amount of pay, no amount of summers off and going home at 3pm is enough to offset the ugliness of walking into a classroom. but there are days, enough of them, where i think i would not survive if i couldn’t walk into this room and be part of this strangeness, where i think i would do this job for free.