No Talking (9 page)

As Dave and Lynsey hurried back to their seats, Mrs. Hiatt, her ears still ringing, said, “Thank you. That was . . . excellent. I have called this special fifth-grade assembly so that every one of you gets the same message at the same time. As of right
now
”—and here, the principal paused and swept her eyes over the upturned faces in front of her—“the contest, or game, or whatever you'd like to call this sudden quietness, or this three-words-in-a-row business you're all doing—as of right now, it's
over
. Ended. Stopped. It was interesting, and I hope you learned something, and we all hope that you also enjoyed yourselves. But I have decided that it needs
to stop. What you've been doing has made it very difficult to have normal, productive classroom activities. And, of course, that is why we're all here, to learn as much as we can every day. So, is that clear?”

The room was silent, and then a scattering of kids replied, “Yes, Mrs. Hiatt.”

The principal said, “Is what I am saying clear to
everyone
?”

This time the whole group responded, “Yes, Mrs. Hiatt.”

But there was no sudden rush of whispering, no undercurrent of talking in the auditorium, no joking and laughing—none of the usual behavior that the Unshushables were famous for.

The group remained silent.

And Mrs. Hiatt realized something: Yes, the kids had all responded to her, and just now they had all obediently said, “Yes, Mrs. Hiatt.” But—that was only
three
words. And now it was still completely silent in the auditorium.

So, to really prove that they had actually
agreed
to behave normally, well . . . she would have to get them all to start talking . . . normally.

But the principal instantly decided that this did not feel like the right moment to push it. Better to
let the teachers work it out with smaller groups, one class at a time.

So she smiled at the fifth graders and said, “Thank you for listening so carefully, and now I hope you all have a wonderful day. Teachers, you may take your first-period classes now.”

Mrs. Hiatt watched the classes leave, one by one. It was a very orderly exit. All the kids were behaving extremely well.

But it didn't feel right. It was just too quiet.

A
s he walked toward his first period class, Dave felt relieved. He was glad Mrs. Hiatt had put an end to the contest. He was especially glad that he wouldn't have to actually mark a big
L
on Lynsey's forehead. Or the reverse of that. Now he could just think about his schoolwork again. Because he really was a pretty good student. That's why he was in the high math group.

But as he went into the math room, he didn't talk to his friends, and they didn't talk to him. And none of the girls were talking either. No one was actually sure that the contest was over. And no one was taking chances. Including Dave.

The bell rang, and as everyone took their seats it was still completely quiet.

Mrs. Escobar got right down to business. “All right, students, we're still working on metric conversions,
and, let's see . . . who's got an answer for the first homework problem?”

Lynsey raised her hand, and when Mrs. Escobar nodded, she said, “Three hundred twelve.”

Mrs. Escobar frowned. “‘Three hundred twelve' what?”

Lynsey said, “Degrees Celsius.”

Mrs. Escobar looked at Lynsey. “You heard what the principal said a few minutes ago?”

Lynsey nodded.

“About how this little game needs to stop?”

Lynsey nodded again, and then raised her hand.

Mrs. Escobar nodded, and Lynsey said, “But why?”

“Why?” said the teacher. “Because it's not good. For anyone. It slows down our classwork. Like right now. We should be doing math, and instead we're talking about . . . not talking.”

Lynsey said, “Math is numbers.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Escobar, “but we need to use words to talk about how we're using numbers. You know that. You all know that. So stop this. Right now.”

Lynsey stood up and pointed at the dry erase board. “May I?”

Mrs. Escobar said, “Go ahead.”

Lynsey had her homework paper in one hand and a marker in the other. She wrote out the numbers for the first problem and then showed the three steps she used to get the correct answer.

She turned to Mrs. Escobar, and when the teacher nodded, she said, “How's that?”

Mrs. Escobar was starting to boil over. “I am
not
amused by this, Lynsey. I know what you're doing, and I will
not
stand for it. Now
stop it
!”

Lynsey stood at the board. She pointed at the problem. “Is it right?”

Another three words.

Dave knew that look on the teacher's face. It meant trouble, serious trouble. And not just for Lynsey. He held his breath, waiting for the explosion.

But the very next moment, Dave amazed himself: He raised his hand.

Mrs. Escobar had to grit her teeth, but she managed to say, “Yes?”

Dave pointed at the solution on the board and said, “Mine is different.”

Without asking permission, Dave was on his feet. He grabbed the marker from Lynsey and scrawled his work onto the board. He had the same answer, but he had worked with fractions instead of decimals.

Mrs. Escobar said, “How many of you did it the way Dave did?”

About half the hands went up.

“And the way Lynsey solved it?” The other half went up.

The teacher nodded. “That's good. Does everyone see why it can be done both ways?”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay, here's a tougher question: Kelly, which way was easier, Dave's way or Lynsey's way?”

Kelly said, “Lynsey's.”

“Really?” asked the teacher. “How come?”

“Fewer steps.”

And all around the room, Mrs. Escobar saw heads nodding, saw the special light that shows up on a kid's face when understanding happens.

She smiled. “That's right. Decimals really do make things easier.”

Tyler raised his hand and said, “With a calculator.” Which got a laugh from the whole class.

And as they laughed, Dave and Lynsey looked at each other for about half a second. Not quite a friendly look, but similar.

Then Dave thought,
This means the contest is still on.
And he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

The class sailed through the rest of the conversion
problems—miles to kilometers, kilograms to ounces, acres to hectares, on and on. And every student responded using three words or less, or with written answers on the board.

Mrs. Escobar knew the kids weren't obeying Mrs. Hiatt. She knew they were still counting words, still keeping silent unless called on.

But honestly, at this moment, she didn't care. She was in the middle of an amazingly productive class period—and everyone was so focused, so alert, so engaged. Compared to the classroom experience she'd had with these same kids just twenty-four hours ago, well, it was like night and day. And she liked the day much better.

• • •

And what was happening in the other first-period classrooms on Wednesday—classrooms where Lynsey and Dave were not on hand to provide some leadership?

As science class began, Mrs. Marlow had already decided to make an example of the first kid who gave her a three-word answer. And it happened to be Kyle.

“I
asked
you to tell me about the order Lepidoptera,” the teacher said.

Kyle nodded. “Butterflies and moths,” he repeated.

“And that's all you know?” she said.

He nodded again. “Pretty much.” Which got a giggle from the class.

Mrs. Marlow grabbed a notepad and picked up a pencil, reading out loud as she wrote: “Dear Mrs. Hiatt, Kyle has refused to obey your instructions. He is not participating in class discussion, and he—”

Kyle raised his hand, and Mrs. Marlow snapped, “What?”

“I'm participating.”

“No,” she said, “you're
deliberately
using as few words as possible, and you are disobeying the principal.”

Kyle shook his head. “I'm . . . conserving.”

She said, “That's nonsense. Conservation means . . .”

Kyle finished the sentence: “. . . not wasting.”

Mrs. Marlow glared at him. “Conservation is for energy and water and soil and forests. Words don't need conserving.”

“Maybe they do,” Kyle said, which was awfully brave of him.

And all the kids in the class nodded their agreement with Kyle. Which was also very brave.

Mrs. Marlow felt herself getting angry. However, she was an extremely logical person, and she had to
admit that Kyle had a point. Anybody who had ever eaten lunch in the teachers' room or sat through a whole faculty meeting would have to agree that a
lot
of words get wasted every school day. And all that endless gabbing that had made the Unshushables so famous? Ninety-nine percent waste.

But she said, “Regardless of that, the principal said you must all participate
normally
in class.”

Kyle scrunched up his face. “What's normal?”

Mrs. Marlow said, “In this case, it means talking the way the principal wants you to . . . the way I want you to . . . the way everyone usually talks and answers . . . normally.”

Kyle said, “Can normal change?”

“Well . . . ,” and Mrs. Marlow paused.

She paused because just three days ago they had discussed climate change, and she had explained how a normal high temperature
now
would have been considered
abnormal
a hundred years ago. And she knew Kyle would remember that. The whole class probably remembered. This was a very bright group.

She continued. “Yes, you could say that. But it's certainly not normal to use only three words at a time. Or no words at all. Not at school.”

Kyle shrugged. “Works for me.”

Mrs. Marlow thought back to all the times in the past week when she'd had to yell at Kyle about his nonstop whispering, about his constant joke-telling, about his never-ending comments on anything and everything that ran through his twitchy little head. And she looked at Kyle sitting there quietly, giving her his full attention. And every other student was doing the same thing.

And suddenly, the idea of trying to
make
these kids talk, actually
demanding
that they all go back to being noisy, self-absorbed chatterbrains—it simply wasn't . . . logical.

So Mrs. Marlow decided to go ahead with her lesson for the day, and she adjusted herself to the new normal. Because the
new
normal was at least ten times better than the
old
normal.

• • •

In social studies there were more oral reports, and Mrs. Overby called on Ed Kanner and Bill Harkness to go first.

The boys walked to the front of the room, stood shoulder to shoulder, and both of them looked down at the index cards in Bill's hands.

Ed said, “Italy is old.”

Then Bill said, “The Roman Empire . . .”

And Ed said, “Ruled the world . . .”

And Bill said, “For many centuries.”

And Mrs. Overby said, “
What
do you two boys think you're doing?”

Ed said, “Giving our report.”

And Bill said, “On Italy.”

“No,” said the teacher, “you're still playing that game, counting the words.”

“But we practiced,” Ed said.

“We're ready,” Bill said.

And Ed said, “Can we finish?”

Like the other teachers up and down the fifth-grade hall, Mrs. Overby had to make a decision: Go with the flow—which promised to be very quiet and orderly—or call for the principal, raise a ruckus, and try to force these kids to be their regular old noisy selves again.

As a student of history, Mrs. Overby knew about the power of a grassroots movement. She also knew about the power of civil disobedience.

But mostly, she decided that this no-talking craze was actually a pretty good social experiment. Plus, she didn't feel like the kids thought they were winning and she was losing—it wasn't like that. They were just having a different kind of communication experience—together. That's all.

True, Ed and Bill's report on Italy was choppy
and awkward and a little hard to follow as they passed the narration back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball. But the boys made all their points, learning took place, and the whole class sat silently and paid close attention. And the next five reports went almost as smoothly. What more could a social studies teacher ask for?

So, like the other teachers, Mrs. Overby chose the quiet way.

And she decided she'd talk to the other teachers later in the morning and see how they were handling this thing. And she'd talk to Mrs. Hiatt, too.