Lesson 14: They are worth the fight.
The adrenaline has drained from my body and I’m running off the fumes of three-hour old instant espresso wafting from my Don’t-Make-Me-Use-My-Teacher-Voice mug on my desk. I always feel terrible for my E period class, last of the day, drinkers of the dregs of my instructional juice. But this group is really getting the backwash.
My leg is aching. Every throb makes me think of Jeff’s deft fingers on my calf on Friday. That particular memory has caused me to solve three integer problems wrong and forget most of the names I work so hard to learn on the first day. And to make matters worse the spinning wheel of death on my ActivBoard has been circling for nearly three minutes and there’s really only so many times you can push a kid to tell you about their summerbefore you realize that their summer was probably really effin’ boring and they are embarrassed to share.
“Anyone else do anything fun this summer while we wait for our technology to cooperate?”
Crickets.
This group is quiet. I only got four smiles at my specialty tee that I had made the day after I signed my contract with the district. My first-day-of-school shirt.Welcome to The Best Year of Your Life. It makes me smile even when I read it upside down. I’ll consider this class my challenge for the year and breaking their adolescent armor my herculean quest. I will make them love me, gosh damn it.
The ActivBoard gives a visual hiccup and the next math problem flashes up on the screen.
“There it is! Go. Go. Go.”
The students stop staring at my forehead and turn to each other, throwing answers across the room despite my repeated attempts to shush them while they search for the red solo cup with the answer written inside. I love watching the groups try to pick up the cup with their doohickey—a rubber band with four strings tied to it, one string for each group member.
“Don’t overstretch it, Hulk Hands!” I tell a boy who’s already broken two rubber bands by pulling the string too hard. He nods, eyes intent on the task. His team almost has their doohickey around the cup.
“No touching the cup, Billy. Only the string. Goooood!” I love the way their little noses crinkle in consternation while they focus.
“Nice job, Jill and team! Get it to the table.” It’s shocking that I wasn’t a cheerleader. I’d have made a damn good one. Wasted on the soccer field if you ask me. Jill’s group has the solo cup secured in the doohickey and they are hovering around the table in the back of the room, working together, pulling the stringsso that it stands upright without falling. The rim of the cup makes a satisfying plop sound as it drops from the rubber band’s clutches, then wobbles once and settles. The team members cheer and jump up and down.
“Keep going everyone. I need to check if they’re correct,” I yell over the groans of defeat. I glance at the integer problem on the board and then slip through the chaos to check the inside of Jill’s Team’s cup.
“Negative ten is correct! We have a winner!” I clap and the bell rings over the sound of trash talking and whining.
“Alright everyone, notebooks tomorrow! Let the math begin!” I holler as they rush out of my room to check their phones. Bunch of addicts.
I limp toward my desk to check my phone, hoping there’s a response from Dr. Dick and crew about my invite for Friday night. It’s not that I care if Jeff comes. In fact, I really hope he doesn’t. Tara is like a vulture with fresh roadkill when I bring around new men. She’ll pick him apart and probably embarrass the hell out of me—not that there’s anything left to be embarrassed about around Jeff. But still, I’m just curious to see how he responds, this being our first text convo and all.
My arm is elbow deep in my oversized teacher bag when I notice one student lingering in the back corner of the room, stacking up the cups and collecting the doohickeys for me. My chest does that hot air balloon thing that it does every time I witness an act of kindness. Her hair is cut short, the edges razor cut in different layers, and she’s dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt that’s two sizes too big. When she looks up from the table, I’m shocked to see familiar blue eyes sunken into a face that’s changed too much since I saw it last year.
“Jessica!” I try to sound more excited than surprised. I’ve worked with this girl in math club for two years and I barely recognize her. And it’s not the haircut.
“I’m so excited you’re in my class this year.” I keep my face as neutral as possible though my insides are gasping and clenching. Even after all of the master’s classes in child psychology, it was Syd who taught me that any reaction to physical appearance can be detrimental.
“Me, too, Ms. G,” she says with a small smile. She reaches out to hand me the cups. Her sweatshirt slides back from her wrist and I note the sharp edge of the joint bone jutting out. My heart cracks like thin ice.
“Did you have a nice summer?”
She hesitates, then nods. Even that effort seems to exhaust her.
“It’s gonna be a good year, Jess. See.” I point to my shirt and she blesses me with a breathy laugh.
“See you tomorrow, Ms. G.”
“Looking forward to it,” I tell her.
I watch her grab her books and head out the door into the hall. There’s a loud pop and I wonder if it’s my heart busting through my sternum then I realize I’ve squeezed the solo cup too tight and cracked the plastic. I lower the stack of cups to the table and let out a long, coffee-scented breath.
I’m trained for this now. I’ve been through it with Syd—with countless others after her. I’ve got a masters in adolescent psychology and several certifications in mental health advocacy. But none of those pieces of paper can stop the walls of my over-stretched heart from snapping like the rubber bands that Hulk Hands broke during the game today. Watching these kids battle—watching them suffer—it has been the most difficult part of my life. And that’s saying something.
I look to my wall of inspiration and focus on the bold letters of the poster Syd gave me.
You are worth the fight.
Now if only I could get these kids to believe it.
