“Coggio, do you go to Gotham?” From a student’s question, insight into how fast kids are growing up. And from an old friend’s parting words at a party, reflections on finding a home.
Oct. 12, 2005
Today I stayed late after school to work with one of my students, Carter. Carter is a 9th grader who has cerebral palsy. His first couple of days here, he refused to go down to the lunch room because it was difficult for him to go up and down the stairs, and it took him a lot longer than other students to get there. One of my 11th graders, whose sister is physically disabled, took Carter under his wing and led him down to sit with all the cool juniors during every lunch. Other students saw Carter as a person who needed lots of positive attention, and they all were immediately protective of him.
Carter struggles in my class. He rarely does homework and is unorganized most of the time. He’s a good kid, though. Really funny, always upbeat, and in a good mood. I have to admit that before the school year started, I was nervous about having Carter in my classroom. How would I treat him? How would I react to him? Would I be able to keep my expectations high and demanding for him, or would I have to lower the bar?
But I met Carter and knew right away that I could demand the best from him. I knew he’d have to work hard and put in extra effort, but I knew I would reward that effort.
Today, he stayed after to work on his final project with me. He was struggling with his organization, so I got to work one-on-one with him to make sure he had all he needed. We worked for a solid hour and a half, which is longer than a class period, and really intense for struggling students. Toward the end, I could see his energy weaken, so I gave him the choice to work on it in class on Friday. He readily accepted.
As Carter was packing up his bags, he asked, “Coggio. Do you go to Gotham?” (That’s a club downtown.)
“No, Carter. I do not go to Gotham. Why do you ask? Do you go there?”
“Nah,” he said, “I go to a club on Whalley Avenue.”
I stopped for a second. “Carter. You’re 14. How can you go to a club?”
“My grandmother works there. It’s a bar. They serve me.”
I was incredulous. “What are you talking about, ‘They serve me’?!” But I could see a smile creep across his face, so I rolled with it. “Okay, so what do they serve you?”
He paused.
“Tanqueray.”
When he said this, we both started laughing.
“Oh, you are a liar!” I said. “Get out of here!” And he laughed his way out the door.
I shook my head thinking that when I was 14, Tanqueray was probably the last thing I would think of. Maybe my response would be “wine,” or “beer,” because I was that innocent and clueless; there may have been some truth to what Carter was saying. I doubt they “serve” him at the bar, or that he has even gone in. But it doesn’t surprise me that he knows the names of the liquors I didn’t know until I started working in a bar when I was 18. These kids know a lot about things I was clueless about well into college. Maybe I can chalk that up to city living, maybe chalk it up to my growing up in a rural northern Vermont community. Chalk it up to whatever you want. But man, these kids are so much older than I was at 14.
Another good thing happened today. I’m always pushing for kids to examine the choices they make. Today in one 9th grade Literature class, I had kids prepare for the state-wide standardized test (the CAPT) by responding in writing to a short vignette called “The Wig” by Brady Udall. Students needed to read the vignette (a “short short,” as many of my students were quick to point out and connect to my height) and write responses to four questions. Andrea, a repeating 9th grader, was in this class. Last year, her behavior was out of control. She did no work, she didn’t concentrate, she had a terribly foul mouth, and she was totally disrespectful. This year she has turned herself around 180 degrees. It’s unreal. She’s not a star student, but she’s realized something about herself and has demonstrated a great deal of maturity in class. It’s awesome to see.
So today, Andrea didn’t feel like finishing up responding to the four questions.
“Miss, I don’t want to finish this.”
I looked at her hard.
“Okay, Andrea. That’s fine. You don’t have to finish it. But know that you’re making the decision to negatively impact your grade if you don’t finish. It’s your choice to make, and I’m fine with whatever decision you choose to make. I won’t judge.” And I left it at that.
Ten minutes later, she gave it to me. All four questions answered.
And then in the same class, Eric, one of the boys with the ankle bracelets, was talking with another boy after I had repeatedly asked him to get a grip and to stop the talking. While I was in the middle of talking, I noticed Eric and the other boy speaking to each other quietly across a few desks, so I moved to stand in between them, bent over to look at Eric, and said calmly, “You done now?”
Eric immediately got on the defensive: “I wasn’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“I heard you, Eric. You were.”
“I wasn’t. Why you in my face?” Anger flashed through his eyes. I could see it. And he stared at me.
This could have been a moment where I felt threatened. It could have been a moment where I could have made the decision to take it in another direction — “call for help, talked back to him, sent him out of the room. It could have been a dangerous moment. The rest of the class knew it. They were silent as they saw Eric test me and they saw me stand my ground.
All I did was stare back at him. It’s all I needed to do. In fact, I stared so long and hard at him, close to his face, that I saw him crack a smile. Then I knew I’d won. But I didn’t give in then. I kept staring until he turned his head and gave in.
I swear. Moments like that only make me stronger. Moments like that only convince me and other students they can’t shake me.
Oct. 16, 2005
On Friday night, I went to Providence for a party at my good friends’ house, Carl and Laurie.
In 2000, I was in a program called Sea Education Association. SEA is an oceanographic sailing school. It takes college kids first to Woods Hole, Mass., to study everything from maritime history to the physics of waves to how ships’ engines work. After six weeks in Woods Hole, we get on ships to put all we’ve learned into practice. My cruise on the SSV Corwith Cramer went to the Caribbean in February for six weeks. I met Carl and Laurie on Cramer. Carl was the third mate and Laurie was the steward. Laurie taught me how to make awesome bread; she showed me how important it is to laugh and to laugh and to laugh and to keep on laughing even when the boat rocks so much all you feel like you can do is puke. Carl, through celestial navigation, taught me to look at the stars and find out where I was in the world. Needless to say, Carl and Laurie helped shape my life in ways I’m still discovering.
Unbeknownst to me for almost the entire six weeks was the fact that Carl and Laurie were actually a couple. I don’t really know how they pulled it off for so long without my finding out; it probably had something to do with the fact that I’m not a very observant person. It was on that cruise that Carl proposed to Laurie by giving her a ring he’d made from shell and sail thread when we had anchored off Little Cayman Island only a week before we came back home for good. That night, I saw the ring and found out that they were a couple. Laurie asked me to sing a song for Carl on our last night together, as we anchored off Key West. When I’d finished singing, she asked if I’d sing it again when they got married. So last fall, four years after our SEA cruise, they asked me to come to their wedding and sing during the ceremony.
It was great to see them at their party on Friday. My friend Austin called me at 6:30 on Friday night on a whim, and I readily accepted. The rain was ridiculous Friday night, so it took me longer than usual to get up there. But by 9, I was in their house on the East Side, laughing with them again.
Just as these two shaped my life five years ago, they did it again on Friday.
“How do you find a place where you feel you belong?” Carl asked me as I was saying goodbye at the end of the night. We had been talking about the fact that place is important to our happiness — not just the great job or the great apartment. But the actual city or town or place as being a crucial part of being content. So Carl asks me, “How” do you find the place?
This is something I’ve been struggling with for the past year or so, a question that’s definitely crossed my mind since moving to New Haven. When I accepted my teaching job, I’d never set foot in New Haven, so I really didn’t know much about it as a place to live. But my colleague, with whom I went to graduate school, and my landlord, Peter, both swear by this city. Peter says there’s no greater place on earth than New Haven. He goes all over the world and is so thankful to come home here, to walk around the streets and through the greens. He loves Yale’s buildings and the farmers’ markets on Wooster. He loves the restaurants on Chapel and Broadway. The Criterion cinema fascinates him. He loves where he lives. He loves this place.
My colleague, too, chose to come back to New Haven after grad school because he loves it here. He bought a house, got married, got a great dog Jack, and is loving life here. My friend Austin feels the same way about Providence. My aunt loves Boston. My best friend Drew loves DC. I feel like I’m floating around, completely resistant to putting down roots here — “or anywhere, for that matter — “just yet. Where is my place?
So I was talking with Carl about all of this on Friday and he put it in perspective for me. “The worst thing is waking up ten years from now just accepting where you are. You’re young, Gina. You’re supposed to be exploring.”
In celestial navigation, you find yourself in a huge body of water, seemingly all alone, with no visual landmarks to give you perspective. You use a sextant to measure the height of the sun from the level of the water, and you use reference books to calculate time and distance to discover your place, literally, in the world. But meanwhile, you keep moving, because you can’t stop a ship just like that. You just have to keep moving. And after all of the measurements and calculations and referencing you find out where you are. And you mark it down on a map. And you say, “Okay. This is where I am.” And sometimes it’s exactly where you want to be. You’re on the right course. But sometimes, it’s not where you want to be. Maybe you miscalculated somewhere. So you have to cross-reference. You have to double-check. And if you’re really not in the right place, you say, “Okay. This is where I am. But this is where I want to be,” and you point to somewhere new. So you readjust your headings and keep moving.
