A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (2 page)

Content, he rocked back in his chair. "And after all
that, he still failed one out of four students. How do I justify
failure rates like that to the board? The way things are going, the
laws they’re sending down? Both you and I know we’re moving towards
non-graded portfolios. We’re emphasizing success today,
self-esteem, and most teachers are coming along with the program.”
He leaned close, pointing at Solange with the stem of his pipe.

“You understand this is between you and me. The board
wants him out, and although I feel for him, I’m afraid I agree.
Dai’s got tenure and twenty years seniority, but I’ve spoken with
Hersch at OEA, and he assures me that if we have proper
documentation—and we do—they won’t go to bat for him. He’s been a
thorn in their side too. We’re in good shape as far as the contract
goes. We’ve filed all the necessary papers notifying him of his
deficiencies and let the appropriate time pass and so forth. What I
need from you, my dear, is what you do best-document no
improvement. I’ll do the rest.” Placing bifocals on his nose, he
peered down at his calendar.

“I’m penciling it in for next Thursday’s board
meeting. That gives you three days. Not a lot of time.” Rising
painfully, he came around the desk to lay an icy hand
affectionately on her shoulder. “You’ve always been able to help me
out with these things, but I have to tell you, this one’s special.
Noble’s gang would like nothing better than to use this as an
excuse to force me out and bring in Lovejoy as superintendent. If I
can’t get him out, there’s a good chance I’ll be handed my walking
papers. And if I am, you know where that leaves you.” A frozen
stiletto knifed up through her stomach.

She knew—she knew precisely.

• •

O’Connel passed up and down the aisles as they wrote,
tossing a copy of the Constitution in a small booklet onto desks as
he passed.

Pajama day—another excuse not to work, another
distraction for kids who already had too many.

“Okay, guys, in here it’s a workday, so put down the
toys and get busy. You’ve got five minutes.” Under his gaze they
settled down. The sky had grown inky black with cloud. The river
would run high tonight. At his desk, he leaned back, resting his
feet on an open drawer.

So this was it.

They must be serious this time. What else could he
expect after all the crap he’d pulled? It’d been fun, but he should
have known it couldn’t last. Everything ended—everything. After
what he’d lost, what was a career? It would almost be a relief to
lose the last thing he cared about, the last thing binding him to
the world.

He watched her working across the room with the same
fascination he felt watching the river. He had to admit it—she was
magnificent.

Best of all, she held herself as if she had no idea
just how magnificent she was.

“Solange Gonsalvas— “ He said the name under his
breath. An incantation of the unattainable. A charm against
loneliness.

Solange Gonsalvas—his dark angel.

Seven years ago, a rookie teacher in her first job,
she came to Elk River. Now she’d come full circle to finish him. It
made a queer sort of sense in a way. Like a force of nature, deadly
as a river in full flood, she would sweep him away without a
thought.

• • •

Across the room, Solange sat listening. Through the
walls on either side, she could hear loud talking and laughter from
the neighboring classrooms. Here there was only the pinging of the
radiator and the scratching of two dozen pencils on paper. Rain
pattered against the windows. She felt comfortable in this room,
safe, although she didn’t know why she should, so near to the man
she’d come to ruin. He knew why she was here, yet there he sat,
feet up, as if he hadn’t a care. What could he be thinking? She
noticed him raise his glance, and rousing herself from her reverie,
quickly typed her first note.

Copying engages only the lower cognitive domains.
They could better be given a handout.

She wrote it, but felt something else. Glancing
around the room, she felt a tension as they worked, but also a
certain sense of comfort, of security. Routines were comforting in
a way, she conceded, but having kids copy didn’t teach them to
think. And wasn’t that why they were here? He’d been warned about
that in the many notices of deficiency she’d read in his file. Yet
he’d changed nothing.

She watched as O’Connel, looking up from his desk,
noticed a boy with long blond hair asleep on his arms. He went to
stoop beside him, and the boy peered up through bleary eyes.

“Huh?”

“You sleep last night, Frank?”

“Nah.” Frank rubbed at his eyes.

“You’ve got to get some rest before I can do anything
for you.

Go grab a cot in the nurse’s room.”

“I was hoping you’d say that, Mr. O’Connel.” He
scooped his binder off the desk, slid out of the chair and out the
door.

The radiator gave off heat at last. Solange shrugged
out of her coat, and looked up to find him squatting beside her
desk, forearm across the desktop.

He nodded at the door. “Frank, the one I sent out,
lives in an eight by sixteen travel trailer with his mom, dad,
sister and brother.

Five people— His little sister’s got the croup, and
no one’s slept for a week. That’s one thing this old dump’s got
that the new buildings don’t— a sick room. I’ve been sending him
there to get some rest.”

“The office doesn’t mind?” He made a sound through
his teeth. “What do you think? Sure they mind. Parnell sent him
back the first time, with a note that said beds were reserved for
illness, so I went down and raised hell, and they haven’t said
anything since. What’s the use of him being in class if he can’t
stay awake? They’ve got empty beds in an empty room. Who’s Frank
going to bother?” A girl laughed and squealed hysterically next
door. Someone pounded on the wall. Frowning in puzzlement, she
caught his eye.

“I’ve been told that I’m stifling their creativity by
having them write like this when they come in.” He shrugged with a
smile.

“Maybe I am. The gal next door is a very popular
teacher, great coach. She doesn’t stifle anything. Everybody’s got
their own style, that’s just not mine.” Several pencils were set
down with finality, and he went to the front, giving them thirty
seconds to finish writing.

She made a second entry— A student was sent out of
the room (without a warning or parental notification) for falling
asleep, a violation of district policy and assertive discipline
guidelines.

She folded down the screen, preferring not to see
what she’d written. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the truth, but it
wasn’t a lie either.

When most had finished, O’Connel leaned against the
lab table, arms folded across a broad chest. “OK, ready or not,
here we go.” Several students continued writing.

“I’ll wait.” Grudgingly, they laid down their
pencils, looking up.

“Right. Today we’re doing a group discussion. Miss
Gonsalvas, our assistant superintendent is here visiting.” He
winked. “So make me look good, huh?” Pleased he had pronounced her
name correctly, she nearly smiled.

Few got it right—for some reason he always had.

“You’re responsible for ten questions. You’ll find
the answers you need in the copies of the Constitution I just gave
you. Everyone must have the answers in their journals for a written
grade, and each group will make an oral presentation at the end of
the hour for a second. Test tomorrow over the Bill of Rights as
well, so we’re talking about twelve points here, guys. Make sure
and pick the best speaker in your group because you’ll be graded
both on the thoroughness of your answers, and the effectiveness of
the speaker.

“Now, I’ve given you ten situations. A couple are
hypothetical, the others you can read about in the photocopied
articles on the counter along the windows. If the amendments offer
protection, I want you to find it and quote the line where it
occurs, and I want your opinions on what should be done to right
the wrong if one was committed.

“If you don’t think the Bill of Rights offered
protection, explain why not. I’m going to ask each group for one,
but you won’t know which one, so you better be ready to do any of
them. Okay. First situation— Men, women, and children, members of
both racial and religious minorities, are gassed and burned.”
Chelsea spoke up— “The Nazis didn’t have a bill of rights.”
O’Connel shook his head. “I’m not talking about Germany.”

“China, USSR, Turkey, Cambodia, Africa, Timor, it
could be anything,” a boy dressed in black said.

“It happened here, Paul.”

“Two hundred years ago in Salem, maybe,” said Moses,
a small boy with dark eyes.

“Eighty American Christians, many of them black, more
than twenty of them children, were gassed with cyanide and burned
by U.S. Government agents.”

“Waco! I remember that. They were a bunch of crazies.
They had machine guns and they were sexually abusing the children,
weren’t they?” asked Armando.

“We’ll never know. The evidence was bulldozed into
the fire and incinerated with them.”

“Why would they do that?” Armando asked.

“Why does anybody destroy evidence?” Paul asked.

O’Connel cut them off. “If the Bill of Rights
protected them, cite the amendment.”

“I’m not sure protected is the word you want,” Paul
said.

O’Connel nodded. “Second question— When you go to the
polls, you’re told you must pay a tax to vote.

“Wait a minute!” said a tall, slender young man. “Why
a tax to vote?” O’Connel shrugged. “Why do you think, Armando?” He
frowned. “To raise money?”

“To make sure certain people don’t vote,” said Paul
over a paperback.

“Ah, you mean that way only the people with the money
to pay could vote.” Paul shook his head, rolling eyes
heavenward.

“That was the idea,” answered O’Connel. “Numbers
three and four— When Chelsea goes to vote, she’s told she has to be
twenty-one, and for that matter, since she’s a woman, she should
just go on home and not bother.” Chelsea folded her arms over her
chest. “They’d better not!” she said quietly.

“Have you registered, Chelsea?”

“I will next month when I turn eighteen.”

“Five— A woman is shot and killed by BATF agents when
they raid her home in the middle of the night. She attempts to
protect herself and is shot and killed. It was the wrong house.
Their warrant was for the house next door.” Chelsea frowned.
“What’s a B-A-T-F? Paul answered without looking up from his book,
speaking slowly, emphasizing the first letters of each word as if
he were explaining to a child— “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms, B-A-T-F.” Chelsea gave him a saccharine smile. “Well,
thank you so much, Paul. I’m just so stupid, I don’t know what I’d
do without you.” O’Connel clenched his jaw to keep from smiling.
“Six— A college student at a town meeting asks President Clinton
why he reneged on his promised middle class tax cut. The President
is taken off guard by the question from a crowd he was assured was
friendly, and has the Secret Service ask him to leave, which he
does.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chelsea said.

“A few hours later, he’s arrested at home.”

“No way!” said Moses. “For what?”

“The charge is creating a disturbance in the presence
of the President, and being where he shouldn’t have been. The
Secret Service later told him he wouldn’t have been arrested but
for the President’s insistence. “

“Man, that’s scary!” Chelsea said.

“Freedom of speech only applies when you agree with
the government, I guess, huh?” asked Armando.

“Ask a question, go to jail,” said Paul.

“Seven— In 1994, a New Jersey teacher is fired solely
because of her color.”

“Man, racism sucks!” Moses said. “Was she black or
Chicana?”

“She was white. Her firing has since been upheld in
court.” Several students expressed disbelief He raised a hand,
waited for silence.

“Eight— A black landscaper pays for an airline ticket
with cash and is turned in by the ticket agent.”

“For what?” asked Moses.

“For having cash. He’s stopped and frisked by DEA
agents—” Chelsea turned around. “That’s Drug Enforcement Agency,
Paul.”

“Wow, no kidding?” he said, voice dripping with
vitriol.

“Okay, okay,” O’Connel said, bringing them back.
“Thirty thousand dollars in cash he is carrying for the purchase of
nursery stock is confiscated. He’s charged with nothing.” Moses
laughed, not believing. “That’s true?” O’Connel nodded.

“So what happened to his money?”

“It’s DEA money now.”

“Man, you got to be kidding!” Moses said.

Paul raised a hand. “Sieg, Heil!”

“Nine— An immigrant farmer is arrested, tractor
impounded, business ruined, the value of his land wiped away. His
crime— While tilling to plant bok choy, he ran over a rare kangaroo
rat.

“A what?” Chelsea said. “A rat? And he went to
jail?”

“My dog kills rats all the time under the trailer.”
Moses said.

“How come he’s not in jail?” O’Connel waited for them
to quiet down.

“Ten— During a crisis, the government knocks on your
door and demands twenty U.N. peace keepers sleep and eat in your
house for the night.”

“Be kind of crowded at my place,” Moses said. “I’d
send them to Frank’s.” They laughed.

“OK, you have thirty minutes, no more, presentations
at 9:45.” They broke into groups, and he moved about the room,
answering questions, restating problems, and reminding them of the
time.

Soon most were leafing through the small
booklets.

A couple girls at the back of the room were obviously
doing no work. Solange watched as they laughed and gossiped, and
one fed the other from her bracelet of candy hearts. Surprised,
Solange opened her laptop.