Among Schoolchildren

by Tracy Kidder

  Chris looked around her empty classroom. It was fairly small as classrooms go, about twenty-five by thirty-six feet. The room repossessed her. She said to herself, "I can't believe the summer's over. I feel like I never left this place." And then she got to work.

  She put up her bulletin board displays, scouted up pencils and many kinds of paper—crayons hadn't yet arrived; she'd borrow some of her son's—made a red paper apple for her door, and moved the desks around into the layout she had settled on in her first years of teaching. She didn't use the truly ancient arrangement, with the teacher's desk up front and the children's in even rows before it. Her desk was already where she wanted it, in a corner by the window. She had to be on her feet and moving in order to teach. Over there in the corner, her desk wouldn't get in her way. And she could retire to it in between lessons, at a little distance from the children, and still see down the hallway between her door and the boys' room—a strategic piece of real estate—and also keep an eye on all the children at their desks. She pushed most of the children's small, beige-topped desks side by side, in a continuous perimeter describing three-quarters of a square, open at the front. She put four desks in the middle of the square, so that each of those four had space between it and any other desk. These were Chris's "middle-person desks," where it was especially hard to hide, although even the back row of the perimeter was more exposed than back rows usually are.

  When the room was arranged to her liking, she went home to the last days of summer.

  Chris let the children choose their own desks the first day. On the morning of the second, she announced, "I'm going to make a few changes in seats right now. Some of you are too short for where you are. There's nothing wrong with being short. Mrs. Zajac's short." She directed traffic as, without audible protests but with a lot of clanging of metal, the children pushed their chairs like vendor's carts across the blue carpet. Shortness had little to do with where she placed them, but it was too soon to tell them most of the real reasons.

  She knew all of their names by that second morning. She wasn't any better than most people at remembering names, but in a classroom that knack is a necessity and naturally acquired. Confronting a new class isn't like meeting strangers at a party. Inside her room, Chris didn't have to think as much about how she looked to the children as how they looked to her.

  Here they were, and they were, as always, compelling. Four years ago these children were still learning to dress themselves. Four years from now these cute little ten- and eleven-year-olds would be able—but not disposed, she hoped—to produce children of their own. Some of their voices hadn't changed yet, but they were only pausing here on their way to adolescence.

  One boy, Julio, had the beginnings of a mustache. Julio was repeating fifth grade. He wrote in one of his first essays:

  Yesterday my mother and my father unchul cusint me we all went to Springfield to see the brudishduldog and rode piper ricky stemdout ladey is fight for the lult

  She put Julio in one of the middle-person desks. ("He's sort of a special project, and I also know he's got to be pushed. He's very quiet. He doesn't bother anyone. That was the problem last year, I'm told. He didn't bother anyone. He just didn't do anything.")

  Kimberly, whom Chris had noticed squinting yesterday and who confessed she'd lost her glasses, got a seat on a wing of the perimeter, up near the board.

  Chris moved Claude to the wing farthest from her desk. ("Because he seems to be the type who would be up at my desk every minute, and if he's going to drive me crazy, he's going to do it over there.") Claude was a pale boy with elfin ears. He had spent most of the first day picking at his lip and making it bleed. When Chris took the globe out of her closet and carried it up to the front table, Claude piped up, "My uncle got a big globe like that. It cost about, let's see, a hundred and ninety-two dollars. It stood up this high."

  "Oh, my," said Chris. She smiled.

  She had caught Courtney not paying attention several times yesterday. Courtney was small and doll-like, with a mobile, rubbery face—she had a way, when worried, of making her mouth an O and moving it over to one side. Courtney wore what looked like long underwear, clinging to her skinny frame. ("I look at Courtney and I think, 'I hope she stays in school.' If school doesn't become important for her, and she doesn't do better at it, she'll have a boyfriend at fourteen and a baby at sixteen. But, you never know.") Courtney got a middle-person spot.

  Chris put Robert in another of the hot seats. Robert was a burly child with a cume almost as thick as Clarence's.

  She sent handsome, enthusiastic Felipe to a spot between Margaret and Alice. Felipe seemed to be very talkative and excitable. He was probably used to being the center of attention. Chris guessed, "He's easily influenced by the people around him. If he sits between twits, he'll be a twit." Placed between two obviously well-mannered children, Felipe might be an asset. ("People think that teachers want a room full of girls with their hands folded in their laps. I don't! You like a lively room.")

  Alice and Margaret, both from what was called the upper-class Highlands, were obviously friends. But to Chris, it seemed as though Margaret hovered near Alice, aware of Alice when Alice didn't seem to be aware of Margaret. Margaret would need to learn some independence. Felipe would be a buffer between the two girls. ("I want to separate Margaret from Alice, but not too far.")

  Several children seemed quick academically, especially Alice and Judith, a Puerto Rican girl with long, dark, curly hair and penetrating eyes. Judith was easy to spot. On the second day, Chris organized an exploratory math game called Around the World, a game like Musical Chairs, in which the players advance around the room on the strength of their right answers. In Chris's experience, one child rarely beat everyone. Yet Judith did, not once but twice. In victory, Judith walked quickly back to her desk, a little unsteadily on medium high heels, which emphasized the sway of her hips, and with her head laid against one shoulder, as if she were trying to hide her face. Every child clapped for Judith. Felipe cheered loudly. So Judith was popular, too, Chris thought. Also curiously reserved. The girl didn't even smile at the applause.

  Chris moved Judith next to Alice. ("Judith's exceptional, and I want Alice to get to know an Hispanic kid who's at her level.") Maybe Judith and Alice would become friends. At any rate, they made a comely picture, the silky-haired and pink-cheeked Alice with freckles around her nose, from the Highlands by way of Ireland long ago, and the pale-skinned and dark-eyed Judith, from the Flats by way of Juncos on the island of enchantment (as Puerto Rican license plates say), sitting side by side.

  Chris put Clarence in the remaining middle-person desk.

  On the third day of school, a Friday, several children including Clarence came in without homework, and Chris told them that they were in for recess. Holding midday detention would cost her half her lunch break, but what mattered now, it seemed to her, was that they realize that she cared whether they did their work. Clarence objected to the news about being in for recess. He threw an eraser at one classmate and punched another. Chris didn't see him do that; she'd left the room for a moment. A couple of the children told on him. Chris thought, "I have to put a stop to this now."

  So much, she thought, for her talk yesterday about a new Clarence today. She called him to her desk. He came, but he stood sideways to her, chin lifted, face averted. She told him, in a matter-of-fact voice that wasn't very stern, that he could put someone's eye out by throwing things, and that he could not hit anyone. He didn't say a word. He just stared away, chin raised, as if to say, "I'm not listening to you."

  Chris had to move Felipe's desk again that day, to a spot nearer hers. Felipe was chattering too much.

  "Good," hissed Clarence when Felipe pushed his desk to its new spot.

  "Why is that good, Clarence?" Chris asked.

  He didn't answer.

  But it was obvious to her. Clarence felt wronged. He felt glad that someone else was getting punished, too.

  All of the children kept in for r
ecess worked hard, except for Clarence. She had put up lists of the work that children owed on the upper right hand corner of the board, and "Clarence" appeared on every list. He did a little work after lunch, but he came to a full stop when, late in the day, she asked the class to write a paragraph and draw some pictures to describe their visions of the lives of Native Americans. She told them that later, after they'd learned all about Native Americans, they'd look back at these paragraphs and pictures and probably have a good laugh. All the other children got to work, quite happily, it seemed. Clarence said he didn't understand the assignment. She explained it again, twice. Finally, she told him that she'd have to keep him after school again today if he didn't get to work on the paragraph. She called him to her desk and said, "Clarence, you are making a choice between going home with your friends and staying here after school. You're a bright boy. Why don't you just pick up your pencil and write?" She hoped he would. She didn't want to stay after school on a Friday.

  She watched Clarence. He sauntered back to his desk. On the way, with an angry swipe, Clarence brushed all the books and papers off Robert's desk. Then he sat down and glared at her.

  Chris turned for another whispered conference with Miss Hunt, about scheduling. The other children bent their heads over their papers, working out their impressions about Indians. Chris saw Clarence take out his ruler and put it on top of his pencil. Grinning, he tapped the ruler with his finger. It spun like a helicopter blade.

  Chris watched the ruler spin. She understood this as defiance. The lines were being drawn.

  The intercom called the last bus. The children who lived near the school—"the walkers"—lined up at the door. Clarence headed for the closet and took out his brown vinyl aviator jacket. It was new and had epaulets. It was a little big for him, and made him look even younger than he was.

  "Where do you think you're going, Clarence? I don't know why you think you need your coat." She never liked to hear that ironic sound in her voice, but she felt annoyed. Because this boy would not work, she had to stay after school.

  Clarence threw himself into his chair. He sat with his jacket in his lap and watched the other children file out the door.

  It was just like yesterday. Chris sat at her desk and did some paperwork while watching Clarence. Now and then she said, without looking up, "The pencil's moving. Right, Clarence?" She could see that it wasn't, but her voice was not ironic. It carried the same sort of message as yesterday's: "Let's assume that you are going to do the work."

  Clarence's paper lay on his desk. He hadn't written anything on it. He didn't even look at it. He gazed, mouth slightly ajar, at nothing. Then he glared at her, then stared off. From her desk, his face appeared as if suspended in the forest of inverted chairs.

  Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is ... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice. Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either. She wanted Clarence to realize that he would pay a price for not doing his best and for misbehaving. If she was consistent, Clarence might begin to reason that he could make school a lot easier by trying to do his work. If she got him to try, she could help him succeed, and maybe even help him to like school and schoolwork someday.

  But this was Friday. Chris never stayed after school on Friday. She felt worn out. The first few days always made her yearn for a sofa and some pillows. Her feet ached. She had earned her Friday afternoon away from here and Clarence. Why had she put herself in this position? On a Friday!

  Clarence's teacher last year had said that Clarence cried a lot. The teacher was no fool, but Chris just bet that she, and the teachers before her, had too often relented at the sight of Clarence's tears, just as Chris had yesterday when she'd asked for a new Clarence. She would not relent again. She looked across the room at Clarence and flexed the muscles in her jaw. She felt testy. Just then, it seemed like the best way to feel: All right, blister. What you need is what I've got. Chris took a deep breath and let it out. Then she got up and strode across the room, her hands in fists.

  Clarence jerked his head away as she approached.

  "Are we going to go through this every day, Clarence?"

  She grabbed a chair and sat down beside him, leaning her head forward and a little to one side to get it close to his. He turned his farther away. "I can wait you out as much as you can wait me out. If this is not done Monday"—she tapped the blank paper on his desk—"plus all the other work you owe me, you won't have recess. And you'll be after school. You are going to do it."

  Tears began to streak his cheeks again.

  "Secondly," Chris began, and she let her voice rise. It was all right to let it rise; this offense was more severe. "If you're mad at Mrs. Zajac, you deal with me. You don't take it out on others! You raise a hand again to anybody and you're out of here. Do you under -stand?"

  He had turned his face all the way around, so that she was looking at the back of his head.

  Chris's voice came down. "I tried yesterday to be nice to you, and said, 'Let's start over.' But you don't want that. Now, Monday, this work is going to be done. Do you understand?"

  He didn't speak.

  "Now, go," she said.

  Clarence jumped up and ran out the door. From the hallway, echoing back up the stairs, came his voice. There were tears in it. It was a sharp little cry. "I hate Mrs. Zajac!"

  Chris sat for a while in the child's chair that she'd pulled up to Clarence's desk. She sat there, looking out the door, until the worst of her defeated feeling passed. It was the sort of feeling that follows domestic quarrels. You feel that you have every right to speak angrily to your child or your parents, and when you do and a wound appears, you suddenly see the situation altogether differently. She hadn't been able to sympathize fully with Clarence until now, when she had hurt him.

  She couldn't help getting angry sometimes, and sometimes getting angry worked. Usually, the sort of child who got her angry was the sort of child who got angry back. They could wrangle openly. Together, they could clear the air. But Clarence wasn't that child, and mistaking anger for reason was always dangerous. Clarence needed firmness, but she wondered if he hadn't seen too much anger from adults already.

  I hate Mrs. Zajac! Once she heard the cry, she could imagine any number of gentler words she could have used on him, and all of them seemed better than the ones she'd chosen. By yelling it on the stairs, he let her know she'd wounded him and didn't give her a chance to make repairs. He won that skirmish.

  There were a lot of stories about Clarence around. One school department psychologist remembered him as a kindergartner and remembered being struck by the eagerness with which he climbed into her lap. There seemed to be a desperate quality about Clarence's search for love. Chris would have felt better if she could have told herself that Clarence really did dislike her. But, of course, that wasn't what he meant. He hated her. Had he attached himself that strongly to her already? This was only the third day of school. If things went on this way with Clarence, it was going to be an exhausting year.

  Chris got up and walked over to her desk. She stared out the window. It was one long, rectangular sheet of smoky, slightly scratched plexiglass flanked by two small casements. The windows opened onto the playground below: a field of grass with a baseball diamond and a concrete basketball court in one corner and a few scrawny young trees on the edges along the chain link fence. The playground ended at a line of warehouses and factories. One factory building was old, of dingy brick, with its ground-floor windows covered in plywood. Another, Laminated Papers, had pale green wa
lls the color of hospital corridors. The factory roofs hid all views of the wide, brown Connecticut River, rushing down from the huge falls, which once powered all of industrial Holyoke. Under a string of high-tension wires, a lumpy horizon of trees, the only full-grown trees in sight, rose from the Chicopee bank of the river. Chris stared out at the hospitalgreen walls of the Laminated Papers building. Clarence is an angry child, she thought. Angry at the whole world. Worst of all was that stony, averted face he wore when she tried to talk to him. How could she ever get close enough to reason with a child who put up a barrier like that?

  Anger wouldn't work, obviously, nor would endless sessions of detention—they would simply make her feel resentful, too. Maybe she should simply warn him that he was getting F's. No, that wouldn't work either. On his first report card he'd flunk everything, and that would tell him the same old news, that he didn't have to do the work because he couldn't.

  3

  After spending most of six hours alone with children in one room, a teacher needs to talk to another adult, if only to remind herself that she still is an adult. Chris needed to talk more than most people. She couldn't sort out her thoughts until she had turned them loose into the air. She hated, not solitude, but the silences that cover up emotions. This evening especially she would have to talk.

  When she got home her husband, Billy, was there already. Billy was about six feet, with prematurely gray hair and an open, youthful face. He was a good listener. The first year or so of their marriage, she would bring home teacher stories and halfway through would pause to check. She'd say accusingly, "You weren't listening, Billy."