New Haven Independent

Oct. 23, 2005

This Friday, my students will be exhibiting their vignette collections for the school. I’m going to set it up like a museum in one room, all their books on display for interested students and faculty to peruse when they have time. I’ll set up feedback cards for each student and viewers/readers can leave real comments. I did this last year in Humanities and it was awesome. So, when I excitedly told one class about the exhibition, I was expecting the kids to get a little jittery with nervous energy; maybe some of them would even think it was cool. But three girls (who collectively cause me so much strife with their whining and complaining that I don’t look forward to working with this class) instantly put up a fight.
“I don’t want anyone finding out about my business!” they all yelled at the same time. The three looked at each other and mumbled their resistance for a minute.
I then explained how I ardently believe in my students having a real audience for their hard work and how they’ve known from the start of the project that they’d be sharing their work with others.
“Well, if you’re going to put my work out, then I ain’t gonna do the project,” one girl said. This girl, incidentally, wasn’t prepared with all of her items — actually, none of these three girls was prepared. So it didn’t surprise me that they were reacting to their own less-than-timely efforts toward the final product.
And as my blood pressure rose enough for me to literally feel it shoot from my neck to my temples, I explained, with an edge in my voice, for the millionth time, “Then you’re making a choice. And your choice not to complete the project will hurt your grade. You don’t want to do the project — fine. That’s your choice. But it’s not a choice I respect very much.” That statement effectively silenced my three whiners, but it didn’t make me feel very good at all. I hate when I have to pull out the choice card, especially to students who are putting up a fight only because they think they’re somehow better than the other students.

Oct. 21, 2005

This morning, I was just starting off one of my Literature classes, trying to get an update on my students’ status on their projects, when one girl asked to go to the bathroom. I held up my finger and told her to wait for just a minute while I finished writing on the project wall. She instantly became angry.
“Miss. My stomach hurts. Let me go to the bathroom.”
“Taquaya. I told you to wait. Just wait.”
She sucked her teeth and started mumbling under her breath.
As I turned my back, another student, Ramon, called from across the room, “Miss. Come on. Her stomach hurts. Let her go to the bathroom. Be generous.” And as if he expected me to immediately snap into action, he finished, “Thank you, Miss Coggio,” in a self-righteous tone.
I looked at him and felt my face flare red. “Be generous?” How could he?! How could he even remotely imply that I am not generous?! I was incredulous. Absolutely dumbstruck. And angry.
I turned back to the wall, quietly capped the marker I was using, stepped down from the chair I was standing on and walked out of the room. I heard whispers of concerned students:
“Is she mad?”
“Yeah, she’s mad.”
“Where’s she going?”
“Yo. She’s mad.”
I turned the corner outside of my door and did a silent scream—the kind where you open your mouth and clench your fists and bend over but no sound comes out because it can’t. I have never been so insulted, so mortified, never felt so useless as I felt in that moment.
This is what it’s like to be a teacher. You spend your adult life going to school to learn how to help people realize their potential. You get into a classroom and you stand in front of them every day and put out little fires everywhere. You are constantly outside of your comfort zone and constantly trying to help students feel better when they’re outside of their own. You try to help kids be kind to each other, be organized, see themselves as thinkers and scholars. You try to play fair and you try to teach that same rule to your students. And what do you get in return from those very same students whom you shape your life around? A comment like Ramon’s that implies that you don’t know what it means to be generous.
As I continued to rage, my classroom was silent. Normally when I leave the room, kids continue to whisper or to get up and move about the room. Not this time. I heard nothing. I walked back into the room, picked up the marker, stood on the chair and continued where I left off in a tone much different from the one I’d been using earlier. I was sad.
I could have said something to them. I could have used that silence to my advantage and given them a small speech about teachers’ lives about the thanklessness of our jobs. I could have made them feel guilty. But what good would it do? They’re not prepared to hear about the complexity of my job as a teacher. They’re not even really supposed to understand it, much less appreciate it. All they needed to know was that a student said something so disrespectful to his teacher that it rocked her enough to leave the room and come back a different person. They didn’t need to know why. The silence was enough.
As far as Ramon was concerned, he was a different person in class when I returned. His focused and dedicated work in class on his project was his unspoken apology. He came to me with questions, wanted me to read a second draft I’d had him write in class. My willingness, therefore, to work with him on his writing was my unspoken acceptance.