For Martin Richard

            I’ve thought of Martin Richard often this week.  He was the eight year old boy who died in the blast at the Boston Marathon finish line.  Eight year old boys were half of my world each April for thirteen years.  Surely, some were still seven but they were getting close to eight.  They had the same humongous teeth that were in Martin Richard’s face.  The same vitality oozed from their pores. 

          I was fortunate that in thirteen years in the classroom I never had a student be seriously ill or injured.  I never had a student die.  I can only walk through the scenario in my brain.

          It is part of the planning process.  What will I do when such and such happens?  How will I deal with this or that?   How do I deal with so and so?  Rarely did I plan how I would deal with things that tore my soul open.  And things did happen that tore me open.  My own emotions came after the kids’.  Always, my soul was the last on the list.

          I picture Martin as a second grade boy.  I’m not sure if he was but most likely he was moving through towards third grade.  Second grade boys.  I know about them.  They might have a best friend.  A buddy joined at the hip.  Two heads together planning, building or dreaming.  Did Martin have one?

          Second grade boys move in a pack.  While there are besties, there are always a group of boys.  Arguing about the game of tag.  Developing a new form of soccer.  Laughing uproariously when the teacher slid off her chair.  Teasing each other about the girl who writes one of them love notes.  Lending a hand when someone gets hurt on the playground.  Who were the faces in Martin’s pack?

          I wonder if he was a reader or a math wiz.  Did he like to draw or would he crumple his paper in frustration when it wasn’t perfect?  Did he build his Lego buildings by following the guides or were they free form?  Was he an Angry Birds boy or did he love Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker? 

          Was he kind and giving?  Did he squint when he read the board?  Was his laugh wild and joyful or quiet, hiding behind his hand?  Did he whisper secrets in his teacher’s ear?  Did he tell jokes?  Did he hide books on dinosaurs, dragons, snakes, or sharks in his desk?  Or was it a book of poems?

          I have had many eight year old boys in my life.  Each one has been a gift.  Yes, even the ones that made me seethe in frustration.  Even the stinkers or shirkers or thieves.  I have loved each one of them. 

          I guess, in my scenario, I would talk to the class about not understanding why Martin died.  I would plan a project to honor him.  I would keep a close eye on the class to see who wasn’t coping.  I would try to find someone to help the class cope.  I would be glad it was late April, so we could relax a little as the year began to wind down.  We would sing songs, read poetry, study the solar system to sooth their wounded hearts. 

          Then I would cry in the car all the way home. 

  

R.I.P Martin Richard

Laugh-laugh-laugh

Chapter 5.  Laugh-laugh-laugh
            (Excerpt from Angels in the Classroom)

           

            Jude came in from the bathroom.  “Hey Lucy! I’m hooooome!”

I took a deep breath. “Please leave the room and come back the right way.”  He does.  It gave me a chance not to start laughing with the rest of the people in the room.

            Jude also once wrote a story.  The story starter (the only one I ever choose to use) was:  You are walking through the leaves on a beautiful fall day.  Suddenly you hear a voice in the leaves shout, “Help!”

Jude wrote:     There was my lost cheeseburger.  It had gone away and I couldn’t find it.  It wanted me to eat it.  I love my cheeseburger.

You try not to laugh at that.  Not enough content to get an A but funny nonetheless.

Laughter is something on which we teachers have to have a tight handle. Not stopping the classroom from laughter. That would be sad.  I mean, stopping yourself from laughing at the stunts and absurdities.  I frequently reminded them, “Second grade isn’t a comedy club.”

Eleanor would often cause me to lose my handle on restraint.  When I said to my always noisy group, “Quiet down, let’s get started with math.” Ellie shouted, “Yeah! We might as well get it over with.”  Another day, when I gave the sign for the class to stop and listen, she shouted, “Hey! Let the lady talk!”

When you have a class of people who all want your attention, your love, laughter helps them and kept all of us moving forward.  I’d say to the whiner “What? Your leg hurts? Let me get my scissors.”  Or after another day of three children coming back from recess holding baggies of ice: “We are depleting the Earth of fresh water and baggies, people!”

Our school had lovely banisters.  The rails were hip level for most seven year olds.  Just raising the haunch an inch or two and the ride was free.  The urge to slide was felt by everyone, even me.  (I resisted the urge.)  Sliding down the rails was not seen as “responsible” behavior.  It was especially irresponsible to do it when the whole class was lined up in front of you like bowling pins.  My question to anyone I saw doing it was “Who will want to put their hand on that railing after your bottom* slid on it?  Yuck!”

* insert any of the following:

            Keyster

            Boomba

            Rear

            Padut

            Dupa

            Tuchas

            Tuchy

            Buttocks (this always brought roars of laughter)

            The floors were marble, so landings needed to be perfect or someone would be required to clean up the blood.  “Who is going to clean up the mess after you break your head open?”

            I sang spelling words.  Let me rephrase that.  I looked for songs that contained our spelling words and sang them instead of saying a sentence during the test.  They loved to hate this.  I also found songs that reminded me of them and serenaded each student with his or her song.  One boy always had a cheese sandwich on a bagel for lunch.  His song was “The Boogey Woogey Bagel Boy of Room 203.”

Laughter is a great disciplinarian.  My absolute best threat was a lipstick kiss on the cheek a la grandma.  I would take out a tube of lipstick from my desk drawer, pocket or purse.  This usually brought a gasp from the class.  They knew what was coming.  Taking the lid off and slowly twisting the tube, I’d say “I noticed, Calvin (or whomever), you’re not doing your work.”  I’d apply lipstick to my bottom lip.  “I sure hope …” I then put lipstick on the right side of my top lip.  “you have started…”  Next the left side.  “your math.  I’d hate…”  I rubbed my lips together.  At this point everyone in the room had scrambled to do whatever they needed to be doing.  “To have to give you a big ol’ kiss on the cheek.”  I look up and around.  Everyone was on task. 

No student regardless of age or coolness was exempt.  I could silence a bus of rowdy kids simply by showing them how many tubes of lipstick I had in my purse.  The funny thing is they loved to hate it.  Sometimes secretly, they came to me with a cheek tilted upward and asked me to give them a kiss. 

Sometimes you’d get someone who laughs at everything.  If someone looked at him, he laughed. This is a tough problem.  Is that joy bubbling up? Is it a lack of self control? Is he a fairy changeling? 

I called Elmer over to talk quietly to him.  He didn’t exactly laugh at everything – he bellowed.  I asked “Can you please try some self control?  I feel like I’m calling your name all the time and having to stop the class while you calm down.  That can’t be fun for you.”

            “It was fun until you made me stop.”  

Laughter wells up in both grandiose and tiny ideas.  It is the ability to recognize the absurd in everyday moments.  It can be a slap stick moment or a bad joke.  It can be one of those hilarious misunderstandings which are as convoluted as “Who’s on First?”  We laughed many times each day, keeping the mundane at bay.

My mother always claims it is better to laugh than cry.  When we find ourselves doing both it becomes a truly soul cleansing moment.

One year a first grade teacher came to me and informed me a family of one of her students requested me as their son’s teacher for second grade.  She is a good friend of mine but she was concerned this little boy, who had a diagnosis of Aspergers, wouldn’t get my sense of humor or my sarcasm.

In fact, we got along famously.  I discovered he loved absurd vocabulary.  He was thrilled with words like fewmits or chimera.  I knew we had made it when he walked up to me one day with one eye shut.  “Guess what I am?”

“A one eyed pirate?” 

“No!” he harrumphed. “A Cyclops!”  He then proceeded to laugh so hard he could hardly breathe. 

I laughed too.  His joke wasn’t ready for Comedy Central. His joy at being able to tell a joke filled me with wondrous delight.

I am sure there were a few days without laughter in my room.  I don’t really recollect them.  There is a teacher saying that goes, “Never let them see you smile until November.” I would go bonkers. 

Instead, I remind them if we work hard we have plenty of time for fun.  I laugh at my own mistakes.  I read funny poems before lunch or even better, scary poems that make us laugh at how we jump.  I talk with crazy accents or voices.  Favorites were my terrible French accent or my fake brogue.  The kids loved to hate the muted pre-school teacher well modulated voice, “Now boys and girls, come sit with your friends.”  That was baby talk in their minds.  They loved my “whiney voice” but it gives me a headache to either talk like that or listen to it.

Sometimes they cannot realize what they said was funny.  I had an exceptionally bright group of boys one year who could spell any word I could think to give them.  I got them a set of unabridged dictionaries to peruse.  They were not only smart but fairly ornery.  A tattler told me they were looking up “bad words.”  I called Joel, the smarty pants who had the misfortune of being the one caught, over.  “I know you are smart but I didn’t get you those dictionaries to get you in trouble.  If you know it’s a bad idea, why did you do it?”

“I just don’t understand it.  It’s like a whole different side of my personality comes out when I see those bad words.” He looked like he was going to cry.

I had to swallow my mirth.  I still shake my head and think what side of Joel’s personality is going to come out when he’s a teenager. 

            I had been married to a man who had made me laugh every day.  He saw the absurd in most things and just making eye contact with him sometimes would crack me up.  I remember the first night we met.  It was a snowy winter night and we were riding the el home together after a Money and Banking class at The American Institute of Banking.  He was wearing these big leather, thick soled, hiking boots.  He had asked me a question which made me pause before I answered.  He pointed at the boots.  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I wear these big old waffle stompers to put in my mouth.  Open mouth. Insert foot.”  And I laughed.  I never stopped either. 

            He made jokes as he lay dying in the hospital and then in our living room.  We both had learned from a friend who had died years earlier that you live until you die.  He kept living.  The last few days were horrible as his eyes rolled in a morphine-induced stupor.  No jokes then.  We just muddled through those days.  The final joke came, though.

            We stood counting by 5s to 100.  Then we would start over.  Elena kept making mistakes through her tears.  Mark looked at me, a little frustrated by it.  I winked at him with a half smile. He nodded at me.  I held one hand, Elena the other.  Alec stood next to his sister.  Pie, our huge orange cat, lay between his legs to help Mark with this part of his journey. 

            Mark’s morphine had been out for a few hours at this point and we were doing what I called Mommy Lamaze.  It was keeping a mind focused on something else to distract you from the pain.  Skip counting or saying your ABCs was a wonderful trick for skinned knees.  This, however, was life-ending mortal pain.

            The crazy, red head, useless, substitute hospice nurse had shown up at 7:45 after she had called me at six to ask directions to our house from the suburbs.  I told her to ask someone else. 

            Her hand shook as she refilled the morphine pump.  Too little, too late, I thought.

            I told the kids no school today.  This is it. 

            As Mark took his last breaths, we all were saying, “I love you Daddy.” “I love you Dad.”  “Go to your beautiful place, Mark.  I will love you forever.”

            As Mark took his last breath, my children and I stood holding his hands.  Chopin played on the stereo.  Suddenly, the overpowering sound of a waterfall filled the room.  The music had switched to a waterfall c.d.  It was incredibly loud.  We all laughed.  I rushed to turn it off.  Who knew I was turning off the laughter that had filled my home for so long?

            Thank heavens for seven year old laughter that saved my life.

Keep Cool! Or the Dream of Air Conditioning

Chapter 13. Keep Cool! Or the Dream of Air Conditioning 
            (Excerpt from Angels in the Classroom)      
       
           Russian Proverb:  Patience doesn’t always help, but impatience never does. 

One day, during a math lesson my student teacher, Jane, was teaching the class.  I was doing an observation on another student.  I heard, “VICTORY!” shouted by my best friend Nelson. He was lying on his back, arms and legs in the air.  “Nelson! Come here.” I demand.  He comes and stands in front of me.  “Did you just shout victory?” 

A long pause.  His eyes roll left to right, as if he’s trying to rewind to two minutes earlier.  “Yes.”

“Why?” Mostly, I asked out of curiosity. I just wonder which battle he’d just reigned supreme in his mind. 

           Shoulders shrug.

I shake my head.  “Do you think you could do a couple more math problems before you return to the battle?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I’ll try.”

I don’t perceive of myself as a patient person but I am often told how patient I am.  I wonder why that is.  Perhaps it is the moment or more likely the situation. 

I am not patient with long-winded meetings when I have a bajillion things to do.  I am not patient with drivers in front of me at toll booths.  I am not always patient in line.  Probably that is the least patient of all – especially in line on the phone.  “All our operators are busy.  You are caller number sixty-eight.  Your wait time is two years, three months, six days, fourteen hours and twenty-seven minutes.” I always yell mean things at those recordings.

I am patient with a child who doesn’t understand something.  I am impatient with myself for not being able to find a way to make it clear. 

I am patient with the wigglers.  In fact, I kind of adore wigglers.  They are so spontaneous.  I frequently wonder if these children, ADHD diagnosis or not, are in truth faeries caught in human children’s bodies, struggling to get free.  They lack the ability to put on a filter so they blurt the most outlandish things.  I do get frustrated with them sometimes.  I once told Calvin it was a lucky thing I was single because my husband would have wondered why I said, “Calvin, Calvin. Calvin” in my sleep.  I once counted how often I said his name in a half hour: 29 times. 

I know self constraint isn’t in their m.o., but I want them to try.  Sometimes the “try” is almost as funny as the blurt.  I once filled a full page of note book paper, front and back, writing as fast as I could in an attempt to record every movement Nelson made in a half an hour.  I’d start to write and look up – Nelson was someplace across the room. This happened each time I’d look down.  Up to sharpen his pencil, back to his desk, do a math problem, visit a friend across the room, break his pencil on purpose, scoot back to his desk, get up to sharpen the pencil again.  Over and over.  He did manage to get a little work done.  Not much, mind you. 

What exactly would impatience do?  It would make Nelson or any other child feel rotten about himself – something that just happened because Nelson had no, not any, self control.  It wouldn’t help him accomplish anything.  In fact it would probably be worse. 

I have a myriad of gimmicks for these kids.  For Nelson, none of them seems to work.  The air cushion to sit on became a rolling wobbly thing to toss, a resistance band to kick on the base of his chair became something to trample into the ground, and stress balls flew through the air.  I just took a lot of deep breaths and tried to see the humor in it.  Even sitting in a chair rather than on the rug didn’t help.  He’d fall off the chair at least once a day.  Each time he looked so startled, I had to try not to laugh.

            One thing that just causes my patience to evaporate is heat.  I can be patient and redirect the worst behavior until the thermometer in my room hits tropical.  I don’t know what causes me to become a raving maniac.  Maybe I have a lower than average body temperature.  Maybe my northern European blood can’t process it.

            My only brother, Adam, lives in Queens.  He once called on a hot, sultry day.  There was a power outage in New York City. “It’s broiling.” he complained.  “You know how we Schutz girls are.”  We both laughed.  That Schutz girls or boys don’t suffer the heat well is a bit of an understatement.  We get crabby and sometimes just plain mean. 

            My classroom never had air conditioning.  The first couple of years only a few rooms in our 1920 something school did.  Each year, a few more rooms were added to the Land of Cool.  Finally, about five years ago, there were only four classrooms left.  Room 203 was one of those rooms.  The new engineer said we could not get any more units.  The City would not allow it. It had something to do with air flow.

            We faced east.  With the longer, late spring days, the room was usually 80 degrees when I arrived in the morning in late May and early June.  Both ceiling and box fans would go on.  As there is rarely an easterly wind in Chicago, windows would stay closed with the shades drawn.  No sunlight was allowed to enter.  The lights were off.  The goal was to keep it from getting any hotter.  After several years of experimentation, I knew these were the best options.

            I kept a spray bottle of water in my mini refrigerator to squirt our faces and the inside of our arms.  I taught the class to then blow on the inside of their wrists.  Natural air conditioning, I’d tell them.  I gave lots of drinking fountain breaks. 

            We did low key work.  Who can learn in that environment?  Studies show 72 degrees are the optimal learning temperature.  By 10 a.m. my room was well into the 80s.  Studies also show behavior deteriorates in the heat. My deterioration was the worst in the room.  My temper fuse was about a quarter inch long.  I took lots of deep breaths to keep it there.

            There were always two or three students who, like me, just couldn’t handle the heat.  They alternated between pacing the room like a caged lion at the zoo and wilting over their desk like a wet rag.  These students were almost always my Nelsons or Calvins. 

            We tried everything to keep learning going.  Other teachers would offer their classrooms when their kids were at Library or Fine Arts.  We would join other classes to eat our lunch in relative cool.  When my coworkers complained about the noise the air conditioners made, I just stared at them. 

            So in the dark days of June, we created beautiful things.  We studied the solar system in our dark room.  We made craters in powdered tempera paint mixed with flour by dropping rocks into the “moon dust.”  We created our own constellations with cereal boxes and wrote myths to tell the corresponding stories. 

            Each June, we would do an author study of Eve Bunting.  Partners would select a book at their level and create projects to show off the story.  Dioramas, posters, interviews with characters, songs telling the story or dozens of other ideas filled the darkened room.  We damply listened to each other as each child read a favorite part of his book to the class.

            We did poetry slams.  On Monday, each student selected a poem to be read in the slam on Friday.  We practiced each day.  We had done this all year but second grade was coming to an end and students searched for the “perfect” poem. 

            On hot, stuffy Friday mornings, we’d sit in a circle on the rug. Poems lay on the floor in front of our laps.  I’d pick a stick with a student’s name to start.  In her or his best voice, they read with inflection and expression.  Reading was paced carefully for effect.  After each poem, we’d snap our fingers, coffee house style.  Then the person on the left of the reader would begin.  Jack Prelutsky poems made us laugh.  Mattie Stepanek's poems made us sigh and tear up.  It was simply beautiful, heartfelt reading and listening.

            And for a few precious moments we were remarkably cool.