Educating Esmé (8 page)

“So you're the teacher today, huh!” one of the teachers quipped.

“Yes'm,” he muttered.

“Doing a fabulous job, too,” I added.

Billy smiled into his sloppy joe.

After lunch Billy launched into his paper airplane
lesson. While he was beginning his explanation, Mr. Turner walked in. Billy was poised with a sample airplane, and I was slouched down at his desk.

“I didn't do it!” I yelled when Mr. Turner entered. The class laughed.

“Raise your hand if you have something to share,” Mr. Williams corrected patiently.

Mr. Turner looked at us, one, then the other, and walked out. At the end of the day, Ms. Coil told me he came back to the office and said, “Something's going on in Cordell's room, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.”

I let Mr. Williams off the hook at the last period of the day, assigning a composition, “The Day Billy Williams Was Our Teacher.” I wrote a composition during the period, too, “The Day Madame Esmé Was Billy Williams.” At the end of the day, I read it to the class: How I had forgotten how hard it is not to chew gum, how uncomfortable the seats were, what a pain it is to have to go to the washroom with the class when you don't even have to
go
, how scary it is when you forget to study, how easy it is to feel stupid even if
you're smart. I let Billy have my composition, and he took the rest of them home to grade. I looked at the one on top, by Zykrecia.

“I cant beleave she rilly did it. She said she would and she did. Billy Williams was our teacher today. He couldant really control us but other than that he did a good job. He always givin trouble well now he got some, I think he learnt a good lessin. Madam was actin just like Billy. It made me feel good that she remembers what it like. She ast me for gum but I didint have any. Maybe Ill be real bad so I can be teacher next.”

After school I complimented Billy on a job well done, and that I thought he would be a fine teacher someday, if that's what he chose.

“Ain't choosin' it,” he grumbled, smiling. “Too hard.”

I gave Billy my old harmonica from when I was eleven and told him I'd teach him to play it, if he still wanted me for a teacher.

Note to self: Give Zykrecia some help on contractions.

“When are you going to fix up your room so I can show it to people?' asks Ms. Coil.

“Just as soon as you tell me what on earth you mean,” I replied.

“No time right now.”

“You took the time to insult me, surely you can take a moment to back it up.”

She came up to my room. “I'm just trying to give you teachers constructive criticism. I don't know why everyone is getting so defensive,” she worried aloud.

“Oh?”

“You've actually responded in a much more professional manner,” she continued cheerfully. “Most of the teachers just told me to fuck off.”

“That's what happens when you ask people who are giving a hundred and one percent of themselves to give one hundred and two,” I observed. “I'm interested in the specifics of your constructive criticism. I promise I won't tell you to fuck off, at least, not out loud. So fire away!”

“Well!” Her whole face lit up with the joy of opportunity. “Every time I come in here, I think, your art center's marker tray should be on the right side, not the left. You see!” I didn't.

“Okay. Right, not left. Anything else?”

“Yes. All these papers. You have them hanging so low. Why don't you hang them high? Over the windows, see?” She was whirling around like Kay Thompson in Paris in
Funny Face.

“I see, but I don't think the children, averaging about four and a half feet tall, will. If it's all the same to you, I'd like to keep the best work at kids' eye level.”

“Oh-kaaaaaaay.” She was unconvinced.

“Anything else?”

“The main thing,” she said, “is this poster, on this section of wall. I think you should move it to this section,” four feet over.

“I like the poster where it is.”

She took the poster down and rehung it where she preferred.

“I liked the poster where it was,” I reiterated, “and if you'll excuse my saying so, I'm the one who is in this room between six and ten hours every day.”

“It's still your room!” Ms. Coil exclaimed, surprised. Then she left.

It made me sick, seeing my poster hanging there.

Note to self: Must get Ms. Coil.

Today, went into Ms. Coil's office. She was sitting at her desk, filling something out. Got the plant off of her desk. Put it on her bookshelf. She stared at me.

“It's still your office,” I said and left.

Had a field trip to the Sulzer Regional Library this past week. Seven parents said they'd help me chaperone. None showed up. I finally found two parents from other classrooms who were dropping off their children. They said they'd help if I bought them lunch.

At the morning teacher's meeting, Mr. Turner said teachers “must work harder to help the children achieve their dreams and expirations.” I started laughing
so hard, Ms. Coil had to pinch my leg under the table to get me to stop. I mean, I guess that's why she was pinching me.

Well, they stabbed the substitute today. In the back, with a pencil. The paramedics said it was only a flesh wound. She didn't press any charges, she just went home.

“Who did it!” Mr. Turner howled at them. They were silent. Who in their right mind would say anything? He stomped out.

I sat behind my desk and looked at them. They were sitting very nicely. The mood in the room was somewhat pleasant. I had been gone only twenty minutes. Mr. Turner had called me out to troubleshoot some computer problem and had called in a substitute who was on a break from filling in for another teacher. When I came back, this woman was gone. In twenty minutes, had they really managed to stab someone?

“Would anyone tell me . . . why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“It your fault,” Vanessa grinned.

“My fault!” I laughed incredulously.

“Yes,” explained Selena. “You're the one who is always telling us, ‘Treat people the way you would like to be treated.' Well, she told Donna she was fat, and she told Vanessa she was stupid. She ain't treated us like we like to be treated. So . . .” Her “so” trailed off by means of explanation.

“I see.” I mashed down the smile that I felt humming behind my lips. “But I wonder . . . Did you treat her as she would like to be treated? When you stabbed her in the back?”

“With a pencil,” offered Kirk.

“Yes, thank you, Kirk, with a pencil.”

“She didn't die,” Vanessa reminded me.

“No, she didn't. You only wounded her. You didn't kill her. Very good.” I tried to be encouraging. “But there seems to be some misunderstanding. You see, you must treat people as you would like to be treated even in the event that they are ignorant and don't treat you as you would like to be treated. That's the tricky part. You must follow the Golden Rule even if you think they are stupid. Even if they don't follow the
Golden Rule, you don't bring yourselves down to their level.”

The children now hung their heads.

“I'm sorry. I should have explained it more clearly. Perhaps it is my fault,” I suggested. A heavy silence hung.

“We'll do better next time,” Vanessa called out brightly.

“Yeah! We get it now!” said Kirk. “We're sorry.”

“Don't say you're sorry to me,” I said. “I'm not the one with a pencil stuck in my back.”

The children laughed at this, reminisced briefly about the humor in seeing a pencil in someone's back, and began working industriously from their T.T.W.E. texts. From behind my desk, I stared at them, wondering whether to be afraid. Didn't Malcolm X say something like, “Only those who do not understand us have reason to fear”?

At the end of the period, I jokingly said, “May I assign homework, or will I then need to watch my back?”

“Not you, Madame Esmé,” said Selena.

That made me feel a little better.

We just finished a unit about Native Americans. I thought it was very successful. We studied several tribes in depth, and I paid a man from the Native American Education Service to come in and give a presentation about the parallels between Native and African Americans toward the building of our nation. He brought in lots of unusual artifacts, too.

To culminate the unit we had a powwow. We painted our faces and made headdresses according to research and learned as authentic a rain dance as we could find. Asha's mother helped make her a really nice Native American–style vest for the occasion. It made me feel good, like Asha was interested enough to tell her mom what she was learning, and Asha's mom was interested enough to get involved.

We had a naming ceremony, in which we went in a circle, and someone would volunteer to give that person a name that capitalized on some positive feature. It was a very thoughtful time. JoEllen was given “Girl of Many Questions.” Donna was given “Girl with Cheeks Like Smiling Chipmunk.” Ozzie was “Boy Who
Draws Like Crazy.” Monique was “Hair That Flows Like Water.” I was pleased that the children stayed encouraging in the names they gave. I wrote out each name as it was decided upon on a badge for the student to wear. Then the children named me “Woman With Many Children.”

They wore their costumes down to lunch. They were very quiet in the hall. Ms. Coil commented on this. “Why aren't you making noise, like wild Indians?”

Tobias, line captain, looked disdainful. “We're Iroquois, not Comanche,” he said by way of explanation. Hearing him say that was like getting to give a perfect score on a test. I knew he got it.

Like every successful day, it seems, it ended by getting called into the office.

“I ‘did' Native Americans when I taught kindergarten,” boasted Ms. Coil.

“That's nice.”

“I had them dress up, too. Don't you think fifth grade is kind of old for dress-up?”

“They were comfortable enough,” I shrugged.

“I notice by your lesson plans you didn't quiz them
after each tribe. Maybe next time, Woman With Many Children.” She read my badge.

“Yeah, maybe, Big Chief Micromanager.”

Nobody around here seems to like my brand of humor.

Draggy things this week: Mr. Turner looking at my breasts. Takes all the joy out of wearing a leotard. Proceeded to ask me to do a schoolwide promotion of milk.

I finished typing a pretty terrific newsletter for our classroom. The kids wrote great articles. Gave it to the lesser of two evils, Ms. Coil, not out of love, purely to cover my ass in case of an insane parent. I guess she got excited, though, and showed Mr. Turner. He started out complimentary but quickly annoyed me, saying that he felt “hurt” that I didn't put one in his mailbox. I acted surprised, like I must have accidentally
shoved it in the wrong box in my haste. I felt stupid telling such a meaningless lie, but I felt it more polite than saying, “I tend not to share things unnecessarily with those I despise.” He reminded me that I must show him parent communications before I send them out, or he will have to write me up. Furthermore, he wished that I wouldn't put so much energy into my classroom and more into the whole school.

I said I thought I did do a lot. I brought up the Connie Porter assembly. He said that was nice, but it's a new marking period now, and what had I done? I brought up the fact that I volunteered to sponsor two after-school extracurricular programs. He said he wanted me to work on the school paper; that is, invent a school paper. I said it would be my pleasure, to the extent that it doesn't interfere with helping the thirty-one children in my charge.

“I hired you to help out around the whole school.”

“I think you ask a lot of a first-year teacher,” I answered flatly.

Later that same day, he called me into his office. He had a computer printout of the guidelines of the
school social committee, which I unfortunately chair. I had signed the bottom “Madame Esmé,” which was the source of conflict, but he doesn't tell me this right away. He just looks grumpy and closes the door to his office, which, from precedent, I translate to be the overture to an unprofessional action. So I say, “Mr. Turner, please open the door or allow me to have another teacher present.”

“That's not necessary,” he says.

I say, “I feel it is,” and get up and open the door myself.

He says, “No, it's not,” and gets up and slams the door. I felt intimidated and weirded out.

Then he lays the “Madame” thing on me. “I thought we had this settled. I'll put it in writing that I don't want any correspondence to leave this school with you signing your name ‘Madame.' It's enough I let the children call you Mrs. Esmé!”

Lets the children! “I am not discussing this with you in this way any further.” I got up and moved to the door.

When I had one foot in and one foot out, he yelled, “If you leave when I AM SPEAKING TO YOU, THEN
YOU ARE DEFIANT! I'll have you down for DEFIANCE!” His eyes were all big and flashy.

Standing in the threshold of his office, time seemed to slow down as I considered his observation and subsequent threat. Being a teacher, my initial response was the desire to compliment him on his acquisition of such a challenging daily word as “defiance.” Bravo! Then I felt sobered, heavy, and sad, and a part of me also felt very, very tired, of the sick-and-tired variety.
This is one of those “if . . . then,” puzzles
, I thought.
The kids will pay in the long run if I get canned. Stick your nose in his ass like he wants. Don't win the battle. Win the war.