The Great Expectations School (11 page)

“SFA is about to begin. That's our literacy program,” Mr. Randazzo explained. “See if you can get him tested for a group,” he said to me, and promptly left.

Marvin had a lazy right eye, but there was nothing otherwise remarkable about him at first glance. He was average height for his age, with neatly trimmed short black fuzz on his head. His eyes were serious and terrified. I asked him if his family had just moved to this neighborhood and he shook his head, mumbling sullenly, “My old school is a bad place.”

I called the Success for All headquarters downstairs to locate someone to test Marvin for a level placement. Daniel was still un-placed and alternated between drawing and spacing out in the back of the room during the ninety-minute block that Mrs. Baker and I now ran together. Dom Beckles, P.S. 85's SFA coach, answered the call and agreed to evaluate both Marvin and Daniel.

Thirty minutes later, Beckles returned them to my room and gestured for me to meet him in the doorway. “Those two are non-readers. They can't read a thing!” he whispered.

“Why are they in my class?” I asked.

“It's a bunch of fools running this school,” Mr. Beckles said with conspiratorial hush. “They pull the same thing every year, it's ridiculous. You've got the Queen up there and she has no idea.”

Just get me to 11:30! Then I have a prep, lunch, our first assembly, and the weekend!

When my regulars returned from SFA at 10:15, I moved Marvin next to Sonandia. Now was her chance to prove herself “useful to a student in need,” as her blue card assured. Marvin frowned and sat silently.

Instead of slogging on with well-covered bar graphs or starting a new unit on a Friday, I opted to play Math Bingo. I figured games are a necessary part of school, and this could also be a bit of preassessment for our future multiplication unit. I scolded Maimouna for poor sportsmanship when she gloated in Gladys Ferarro's face, but otherwise everything looked good, like a real classroom. Even Lakiya played.

Midway through the third game, Lito and Cwasey (mortal enemies earlier in the week when the former stomped the latter's glasses) teamed up to use the fake-penny game pieces as projectiles, targeting Eddie. Eddie immediately retaliated, tossing his board and pieces across the room.

My brain exploded. Fury, building from Guiterrez's early visit, suddenly frothed over. I felt a unique blast of air erupt from my lungs:
“DO NOT THROW!”
My face became boiling and screwed up, my words fraying into a guttural bellow. I wheeled, locking my demented-looking eyes with Cwasey's fearful ones, and in a moment I stood over him. Everyone froze.

Keeping my crazed gaze fixed on the small, sitting boy, I dealt commands in a low voice. “Jennifer, collect the game boards. Dennis, take the plastic bag from my desk and collect the pieces.”

Cwasey piped up in protest, “But he was throwing them at
me
—”

“ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
I cut him off with another
dragon-cry. Cwasey shut his mouth. Lakiya grinned. I had outcrazied them all.

During my prep, I sat in the Teacher Center with my head down. I was sure that I was losing my mind. Through the wall, I could hear Melissa Mulvehill screaming at her class. I realized everyone on the floor had heard me raging like a banshee.

Thirty minutes into the period, Mulvehill appeared in the Teacher Center doorway, as if looking for some quick advice. “I just had a kid piss his pants on purpose,” she said in a rush, her voice registering something between horror and twisted amusement.

At least I didn't have that going on, I thought. Besides coaching several baby-teeth extractions, I had had no encounters with fluids since the previous week when Tayshaun Jackson puked up a pack of sour apple Now-and-Later candies at lineup.

During lunch, I brought Sonandia, Jennifer, Destiny, Evley, and Tiffany upstairs. They were excited to be in the classroom at an unusual hour. I gave each kid a fun-size 100 Grand bar and a printout of the Birthday Bar Graph procedure. They copied happily.

On 4-217's direct cafeteria-to-auditorium route for our first assembly, Marvin Winslow tapped me on the arm. “Mr. Brown,” he said, looking at the floor, “I'm not good. I'm a bad kid.”

“No, no, come on, Marvin. I know that's not true.”

“I'm bad. I do bad things. I ate lunch by myself.”

“You did? I'll make sure that doesn't happen again. I saw you hanging out with Dennis when I picked up the class. I'm sure Dennis will want to eat with you,” I said.

“Yeah!” Dennis enthused from the line. I didn't know he could hear us.

“But I'm bad,” Marvin insisted.

“We're friends!” Dennis cheered. “Right, Marvin? We ate lunch.”

Suddenly caught between his inferiority complex and his new buddy, Marvin hesitated. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

“We're friends, Mr. Brown!” Dennis repeated. At that moment, I loved him.

“Marvin, I'm a good judge of character. I can tell you've got a good heart. We're going to work together. I know you had problems at your old school, but you're not there anymore. You're at P.S. 85 with Mr. Brown.”

Marvin nodded and fell silent.

The assembly was a gargantuan letdown. Mr. Randazzo spent a huge chunk of time raising and lowering his arm, trying unsuccessfully to implement the Silent Signal. The teachers had to mimic Randazzo's arm movements, like monkeys. Eventually he achieved quiet and gave a banal speech about being one month through the new school year. Then he announced the September scores from his morning lineup rubric.

Four-two-seventeen was dead last, deep in the cellar. When Mr. R. called up each room's Student of the Month, Sonandia accepted her honor with nonchalance. With the calling of each name, the auditorium roared with wild shouting since, to many, the program solely equaled a license to make noise. Some award recipients could not hear their names. Randazzo had not prepared the winners' certificates, promising they would receive them next month.

I was alone in the corridor after school, appending my exterior bulletin board with five pieces of gloriously error-free math writing when literacy coach Marge Foley approached me. Most teachers are out the door as fast as possible on Fridays, but Marge always stayed late. She regarded the bulletin board. “Good, looks good,” she said.

“Great. It was a bit of a mess…”

“I know, I know. You did a good job.” A brief pause hung in the air. “I think you have the makings of a very good teacher. Your language when you're questioning the kids and your scaffolding on prior knowledge is excellent. And you care, which goes a long, long way. But I have to be frank about something. You absolutely have to find
or concoct some kind of more effective approach to your discipline. You have to decide on something that works with your personality and commit yourself to it completely. Do you have a main plan and a contingency plan for every second of the day? Do you have a system for putting their coats in the closet, for getting drinks of water, for dismissal, for lineup? Your kids are out of control a lot. People can tell. The ship could sink, if you know what I mean. I've seen it before. And you have a
tough
class. I know. But once you get some traction on the management side, it'll get easier. If you don't, it's going to be a very long year.”

I thanked Marge for her advice. I didn't want to sink. I didn't want Sonandia and Jennifer and Evley and Tiffany and Julissa to sink. I
really
didn't want Marvin Winslow to sink. Four-two-seventeen was at a crossroads.

I
WORE A SERIOUSLY PISSED-OFF
expression when I tramped into the cafeteria for morning lineup. I intended to march the children upstairs and deliver a quick, authoritative speech to the class outside the 4-217 door, announcing new systems for entering the classroom: Go straight to your desks with all of your belongings, unpack your bag
completely,
because the closet will be off-limits until dismissal, wait for your group to be called before anyone uses the closet (Violation will risk a severe consequence in group points!), place your homework on your desk so I can see it, and get straight to work on this math sheet that I'm about to hand you as you enter the room. Names go immediately on the Rewards List for following directions, the Detention List for failure to do so.

But something unexpected happened first.

The 4-217 line routinely passed Wilson Tejera's fourth-grade bilingual class on the way to our room. Mr. Tejera's group began each day by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” as they entered their classroom and got organized. The bombs were bursting in air as we walked by that morning. I didn't see it, but apparently, Hamisi made some kind of mocking gesture at the singing students, and Tejera was out in the hall like a shot.

Wilson Tejera was a short, bolo-tie-wearing man with bushy eyebrows and a Rollie Fingers–style curlicue mustache. He had been at P.S. 85 for seven years and seemed genial in my brief encounters with him.

At this moment, his face was a deep crimson, cheeks vibrating with rage. He bent down, putting his nose an uncomfortable fraction of an inch from Hamisi's. “Don't you ever…
ever
… laugh at our national anthem.”

Hamisi looked past him. He had been yelled at by teachers before and spacing out was his way to handle it. I had witnessed this when Ms. Devereaux shouted at him.

Tejera's right hand flew up and seized Hamisi by the mouth, digging hard into his cheeks.
“Do you have any idea how many people died so that we can sing this song?”
Wilson's eyes gleamed. Now he had Hamisi's full, terrified attention.
“You have no idea what people have sacrificed.”
Tejera clenched tighter.
“Never do it again.”
He released Hamisi's face and disappeared into his classroom.

My mouth hung open. I half expected rebellious bedlam to break out right there in the hall. It wouldn't have been unjustified. Instead, no one reacted. Hamisi stared ahead, expressionless. Forgetting the traumatic face-squeezing from a few moments earlier, 4-217 would have looked like a perfectly behaved class. At our doorway, I issued instructions for the new systems in low-voiced commands. The kids followed them.

I took Hamisi aside and asked if he was all right. He looked at me strangely, as if to suggest, “I'm fine. Are you sure it isn't
you
who's not all right?”

An hour later, Success for All period was in full swing. I answered a knock at the door and saw Mr. Tejera, making his first ever visit to my room. “Mr. Brown, how are you?”

“I'm fine.”

“Good. I wanted to speak to you about what happened in the hall earlier with…”

“Hamisi.”

“Right. With Hamisi.” He pursed his lips, picking his words carefully. “You saw me talk very sternly to him, but you didn't see me put my hands on him because I never did.” He paused, indicating my turn to speak.

I had no idea what to say and started stammering a non sequitur. “I think it's great that you have the kids sing in the morning. It's a really good routine…”

Tejera calmly repeated himself. “You never saw me put my hands on him because I never did. I take the national anthem very seriously. Okay?”

My mouth curled into a small, bizarre smile. I imagined us in a spicy drugstore potboiler:

The spitfire hombre gnashed his sharpened incisors, thirsty to visit further vengeance upon defamers of his sacred national oaths. Reflexively caressing his bolo, he peered deeply into the timid neophyte's shit-brown eyes, reading Brown's vulnerability. Suddenly, unexpectedly,
disastrously
for the intimidator, a Zen calm glazed over the younger man's countenance, signaling a clean and abrupt end to his moral earthquake. With renewed confidence and sense of self, Brown stared back at Hamisi's assailant and knew what he must do…

Mr. Tejera filled the void. “You're uncomfortable with that, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Go with the flow.” He knocked his fist against the doorpost for a punctuating dramatic effect and ambled away.

I reeled back to my Success for All group. If I went to the administration, I would be a rookie, a few weeks in, blowing the whistle on a veteran teacher. Tejera seemed to be on buddy terms with the higher-ups. Was this a battle worth fighting? Hamisi's mood had not even noticeably changed after the confrontation. I decided not to initiate anything about the incident, but if asked by anyone, I would tell everything.

The residual stress from the incident shortened my fuse. When Jennifer walked to the closet without permission, I blew up on her, deducted four group points, and zapped her with lunch detention. My introductory lesson for our place value unit lost some steam with my rule-enforcement digression, but I decided it was worth it. I had
to build the ship before we could sail it. I felt lousy nailing Jennifer, one of the only kids who showed any appreciation toward me, but she had broken the rule, and I needed to be consistent. Disappoint-ingly, the next offender out of her seat was Destiny, who started bawling when her name appeared in the detention box.

Lunch detainees sat at a separate cafeteria table from their homeroom friends. They queued up last in the lunch line, and the daily special would inevitably be gone by the time the detention kids got their turn, leaving only reviled peanut butter and jelly.

When I delivered them to the detention table, Jennifer sniffled in shame, but Destiny had a full-body sob attack. “Please, Mr. Brown. Please, please don't make me sit at the detention table!”

“Sorry, Destiny. Now you know the punishment for getting out of your seat without permission.” I wheeled and left the room. Neither Jennifer nor Destiny broke the rules for the rest of the year.

I received a memo from Ms. Guiterrez to inform me that she would be formally observing me on Monday, with a pre-observation meeting slated for Thursday during my prep. At literacy coach Marge Foley's recommendation, I planned another graphing lesson for the big show. “Avoid confusion during observations,” Marge said. “Teach them something they already know.” I thanked Marge and sketched out my observation lesson plan that night. It was two typed pages, complete with aim, objective, task, prior knowledge tapped, Bloom's taxonomy implementations, key questions, quotes I planned to say during the lesson, several paragraphs of procedural description, and some other bells and whistles. Some parts were bold, italicized, underlined, or a few at once. I included a copy of the post-activity questions they would answer—in complete sentences, of course—and a completed model bar graph and data table of my own.