I am so happy you graduated years ago. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like teaching you through a screen after March of 2020.
During a lesson about the life cycle of a chrysalis, I gave a paragraph to read and instructions to highlight where you found proof that butterflies come from cocoons. I read the paragraph aloud and did the same, but when I looked up, one of you had drawn a long stripe of highlighter across your forehead.
“What did you do?” I fumed.
“You said to highlight where we found the answer…I got it from my brain.”
Then there was you (the first of thirteen siblings). To show where the answer should go, in the spirit of Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, I typed a nonsensical message, banging random keys with my fingertips. You raised your hand, “I don’t know what that sentence means.”
“You don’t have to know. It’s gibberish.”
“I don’t know gibberish. No one ever taught me to speak that language.”
Or what about when one of you wrote a thank you card for receiving a sweatshirt with our school’s name and mascot. In stacked, angular handwriting you wrote, “Thank you for the sweatshirt. Now I look sexy.” I suggested that ‘sexy’ might not be the best choice when writing to a school administrator.
“Why not?” you blinked. “It is in every TV show and commercial for things that are pretty.”
How about that one time, when one of you came running to me, “What’s a virgin?” you blushed. I explained as carefully as can be. You looked off into the distance for a while, said quietly, “so a virgin is someone like me.” Then your friend clacked from the opposite corner, chimed in.
“You’re not a virgin, fool! I saw you today in the cafeteria eating meat!”
I was surprised when the tallest of you, so seemingly sweet, responded to a question about how bees pollinate. It was a description of a dance, which led to the bee climbing in, “motorboating” the flower, and then leaving. I returned the quiz and pointed to the word.
“What exactly did you mean here?”
You looked me straight in the eyes. “Doesn’t motorboat mean to shake something?”
And then right before Thanksgiving break. When you ganged up together and called Black Friday a holiday.
“Black Friday is not a holiday.”
You cocked your heads in unison. “But why? We get school off for it. Stores stay open all night.” You all nodded at each other emphatically.
“Big sales!” The tallest of you dinged.
This Thanksgiving was different. You all probably don’t know this. I don’t work at that school anymore. I resigned in the middle of a pandemic.
And you. You know which one you are. You were the hardest of them all to teach. You were so angry, so combative, so frail, small, and weak. Whenever I gave you a compliment, or asked how you were doing, you’d turn your head, glare sideways, and grumble, “You don’t know me.”
But maybe I know more than you’d think. Because every day you asked about what I was eating. If I offered to share, you’d scoff and throw your hands up in the air. So I started leaving snacks out and announcing to the class, “Anyone want this? I’m just going to throw it away.” You’d grab it, give a dismissive shrug, and shove the food in your bag.
I had to do the same thing later that year when I noticed you didn’t have a proper jacket to wear. So I snipped a tag, wrinkled one up, and announced to the group, “No one has claimed this in months. Maybe you know someone who could use it, otherwise it will be donated.” You grabbed it and held it up.
“It will fit my uncle.” But you were the one wearing it the next day.
Or remember when one of you started waving scissors around? “Scissors,” I said, “Cut paper.” I demonstrated. You frowned. And then buried your head into your elbows and refused to speak. You did that a lot in the beginning. Years later, I saw you in a drive-thru. You handed me a brown paper bag and asked , “Teacher, miss! Why are you crying?” You had shared your acceptance to college.
Or how about the time I took all of you outside to conduct an experiment about wind with decorated flags. One of the flags became tangled high in a tree. From below, we watched the flag struggle against the leaves and branches, fighting angles and degrees. It seemed to be literally consumed by the tree. The flag dissipated, no more yellow and blue to see. We held our breath. All went still. And then then from underneath the canopy, like a tear streaming, the flag floated to the ground. Shortly after, one of you followed from underneath, silently dropping to your feet.
“You can’t do that!” I screamed. “What if something happened to you?” You shrugged, presented the flag to me.
“I don’t understand what is wrong,” you quipped. “That was easy.”
I hung those flags from the ceiling in my classroom, like one thousand paper cranes flapping in ventilated air currents. They remained there until the end, even though most of you graduated by 2016. I didn’t take much the day I cleaned out the room and turned in my keys. But I packed up the flags and put the box into the back of my Jeep.
I also kept the heart-shaped snow globe and the cartoon you drew me. I kept the rose presented on the day you all graduated. I pressed it between the pages of our textbook; its color and beauty preserved between wax paper. This part you probably don’t know. Remember the surprise shower you threw? At seven years old, my daughter still carries around the stuffed sheep you pooled together for me. She named him Guy. Guy doesn’t look much like a sheep anymore, and he has no more stuffing. I don’t mind. Neither does she, because Guy is a part of each one of you.
Like the twins with the same sounding names who sat me in the classroom after school one day. They covered the windows with paper, and released their long wavy hair. We sat cross-legged in a circle giggling in that fluorescent cinderblock room. Then the twins wrapped my head in silken colors of moon and sky, and told stories about a white, marbled shrine.
And you, with tiny, thin plaits and a gold nose ring. I caught you reading in class and crying quietly. The cover of the book displayed a boy in flip flops shouldering a large weapon. Swiping at eyes, you whispered, “I relate to the story.” Then you shared yours; revealing portraits of reconciliation and what it means to forgive. You wrote a card, I still have it. “Thank you for understanding how hard I worked to heal.”
I received another card once. A different year. It came from Paloma, right before break. But if I’m going to be honest, the pain is still too raw to share what she wrote.
We struggled so hard in the beginning to communicate. I cried tears of frustration. But at the end of each class period, every one of you would smile, look me in the eye and say, “Thank you, teacher-miss.”
I could never understand why you said that. It felt uncomfortable to hear. I should have been doing the thanking, because you were the ones who taught me.
Despite barely speaking the language.
Love
your teacher
No Real Balance 