After a peek at each jumper and doll-sized version of a Sunday best, I refold every one along the same creases. Lifting a baby-blue sleeper to my face, I breathe in a combination of cedar and laundry soap and imagine my mother holding it up, taking in its scent, and anticipating seeing the tiny pajama on a grandchild or great-grandchild. When I remove the last layer of sleepers and elastic-waisted corduroys, I’m puzzled to find the bottom of the chest lined with black quilted material.
As I reach for it, I know it doesn’t belong, that it’s some forgotten outcast, an interloper inserted among my mother’s things. Sitting on my haunches, knees inches from the chest, I lift the bulky black material. Immediately, my stomach lurches in recognition. It’s my coat from third grade: its inner lining torn loose, the elbows ripped, the hood hanging like a limp sock.
As I hold the tattered relic, my arms begin to shake, my heart races, and I fall back in time. I’m in third grade, bundled in this coat from the moment I leave our house in the morning until I return in the afternoon. I keep it on despite teasing, my mother’s frown, and regardless of weather. I’m always cold.
My head is airy and spinning. I start to rise up, but a heaviness upon my shoulders sends me to the floor. I bury my face in the coat’s thickness, and tears saturate this soft armor from my past. My effort to stop the steady outpouring of liquid generates a heaving sound from deep within my chest.
Hours later, I notice the lavender sky has emptied of color, ushering in the night.
~CHAPTER 2~
2005
MY FATHER used to say, “You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole,” but I’m certain he had in mind a much more literal interpretation than what haunts me these days. So many of the children I encounter are uniquely shaped in ways that make it impossible to pass through the public school system without their spirits being crushed. If you don’t fit the learning mold, watch out. The consequences can last a lifetime.
Most days, my job as a school psychologist is deeply satisfying. Twelve years ago, following six years of graduate school, I traded planned lessons and individualized objectives for a caseload filled with exasperated teachers and frustrated parents. I’ve always been drawn to children who don’t fit in round holes. Now, instead of being a teacher, I give IQ tests, look at the numbers, and tell a story about sharp edges, curves, and what’s possible when the right fit is made. I strive to raise the expectations of teachers and parents blinded by what’s not working. Interpreting IQ scores is not my most useful skill. In fact, it has little relevance compared with my ability to remain calm and patient in the midst of despair, something I’ve always been good at. That is, until recently.
I had hoped my final good-bye two weeks ago to Mom’s tan-and-brown bungalow on East Irving Street, along with the packing away and tossing out, and the huge release of tears, would somehow restore a state of tranquility, that I would return to work with enough steadiness to finally catch up.
But then I found the coat.
When I returned to my office at Milton Elementary—test kits masquerading as briefcases, a shiny four-drawer file cabinet safeguarding reports filled with quantitative specs of children who process the world in unique ways—I knew nothing had changed. Each week I seemed to regress.
Every day, I start in neutral, something trips me up, I fall off balance, and before I can gain control, I’m behaving in ways I don’t even recognize.
I want to blame the coat. I can’t shake its startling image and my surge of anger and confusion. I can understand my mother keeping the fifty-cent vase I gave her in first grade, but a tattered coat? The one that she continuously tried to coax me to take off. Why?
I eventually ended up tossing it where it belonged—in the trash. After I had regained my composure at my mom’s house and made peace with the fact that I would be traveling home under the night sky, I sat, exhausted, leaning against the chest with the coat resting on my lap as I stared into the empty closet. The corners of the room were dark; a 60-watt bulb in the middle of the ceiling cast a dim light. I had cried more than I could ever remember, and yet, felt no catharsis. If anything, the desperate ache provoked by the coat was amplified.
Before throwing it out, I checked the pockets. Reaching into the coat’s right-hand pocket, I felt a smooth, hard circular object. When I pulled the acorn out, it appeared ordinary, aside from its large size. I grew up with acorns—they were as common as dandelions. This one was no different. In a fleeting, dreamlike moment, I saw my father’s large hands wiping clean an acorn with a white handkerchief. His voice, stern and serious. “Take a close look, Maddie.” I gazed more intently and witnessed this most ordinary acorn shift to an object of exquisite perfection—its uniformity of color, the faultless spherical line where the cap once sat—no wonder nine-year-old me had placed it in my pocket. I did the same again, slipping it in the front pocket of my jeans.
The windowless conference room has a stale scent about it. I glance at the clock, relieved to see that I’m three minutes early. Lately, it’s been hard to arrive by 8:00 a.m. I turn toward the door and see Matt Henderson, my buddy and the school counselor, coming down the hall. He’s a gentle father figure to the children who visit his counseling office. His soft, round features, and the way his stomach slightly spills over his belt, add to his teddy bear appearance.
“Dr. Mary,” he says in a playful voice, his eyes twinkling. He’s the only one who calls me this. We’ve been working together for six years now. We meet here three times a week for student intervention team meetings—aka SIT meetings—with teachers to brainstorm about interventions for children. Much of my caseload has its genesis here, but lately my participation has been woefully off-kilter.
Matt settles into a chair diagonally across from me. His eyes search my face. I suspect he’s wondering who will show up. I flash him a smile, letting him know it’s the old me, the one who stays calm regardless. Instead of smiling back, he too glances up at the clock and then out the door into an empty hallway. He leans forward.
“You know this SIT meeting is with Karla, right?”
“Of course. I popped into her class last week to catch a glimpse of the new kid, Simon.”
His brows rise.
“Actually, I didn’t observe too long—her monotone voice still bores me to death.”
A stiffness forms around his mouth. He eyes me.
“Why?” I ask.
“Just checking in. I know you’ve had issues with her . . .”
“Matt. I’m fine. I saw Josiah—that’s who we’re discussing today, right?”
Matt nods.
“Actually, I suspect he was bored out of his mind too.”
“That may be. But—”
In walks Penny Stanton, our special education resource-room teacher. Penny settles in with her usual cheery, “Hi.”
While she shuffles through her notebook for a clean sheet of paper, I lean forward and whisper to Matt. “No need to worry. I’m going to be real low-key here. I know this kid is not destined for a special ed eval. I’ll let you take the lead.”
I wink at him, but it’s forced as my heart sinks. I shouldn’t have to be reassuring him of my own mental stability. I know I’ve been off lately, but Matt’s acting as if the last six years of consistent performance amount to nothing.
“Guess what?” Penny says excitedly. “Grace Adams won the poetry slam contest.”
“That’s fabulous,” I say. “Doesn’t surprise me; she’s so bright.” I first met Grace in kindergarten. She qualified for special education due to her difficulty with acquiring pre-reading and writing skills. Penny’s news fills me with warmth. I add, “And creative. I’m so proud of her. She’s making really nice progress. I think since being accepted into the gifted program, her confidence has increased.” I make a mental note to congratulate her next time I see her.
Karla Clifford, fourth-grade teacher, enters the room. She scheduled this SIT meeting three weeks ago, but I can’t imagine why she’d waste our time here wi
th Josiah. I noticed him the day I was observing Simon; Josiah was the kid completely absorbed in a book. I’d wanted to rush over and see what kind of book had captured his attention. Observing his laser focus on the text, I had also wondered if he attended the gifted program with Grace.
I remind myself that I am here to be present for and patient with Karla. Except I feel put off by her thin lips pressed with conviction, her perfectly applied eyeliner. Not a single auburn strand of hair is out of place. She matches her teaching style. Karla has taken the concept of a structured classroom to the extreme.
“I’m very concerned about Josiah,” Karla starts. “He hardly ever participates in discussions.”
Because they’re too damn boring.
“When I call on him, his answers are way off topic—or it’s some idiotic thing to get the class going.” She makes a sour face and rolls her eyes.
Good for him.
“But most the time, he’s in his own world.” Karla bats her thick eyelashes, and I wonder if this last statement is merely a nod toward sympathy.
Matt jumps on it right away. “Is it possible that he’s depressed?”
Penny’s curly bronze hair bounces as she nods her head up and down in a perpetual yes motion. Her special kids adore her. Most of the kids on my caseload end up receiving her special education help with one skill or another.
“Oh no,” Karla says. “It’s just that he resists following the rules. He’s never on task. He’s always doing sneaky things.”
“Do you mean like reading from a novel instead of listening to the science lesson?” I ask with as much innocence as I can muster. Karla turns away from me, but I can feel the heat of Matt’s gaze.
“That and pretending to be working on keyboarding skills while connecting to the Internet and messing around.” She pauses with a fake frown. “Of course, I had to write him up,” she proclaims with way too much elation in her voice.
I feel an anger snake up my spine.
“It’s the third time since January.” She produces a partial frown and then continues. “Kept him in during recess all last week. He never turns his homework in.”
I take several deep, calming breaths and then say, “I notice you’ve recorded his standard scores on the district test all at the ninetieth percentile and above.”
Matt’s attention is on me; he must have detected the edge in my voice. I won’t say any more.
“I don’t trust those scores. Wouldn’t put it past him to have cheated. He rarely finishes the questions at the end of the science chapter. In math, he refuses to show his work. I suspect he cheats on that as well, otherwise he’d be able to tell me how he got his answers.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes.
Penny, in her infinitely patient way, suggests using a behavior contract that she will help develop. I love Penny’s optimism and wish teachers took her more seriously. Nothing any staff member ever says in this room is offensive to Penny. She makes it her mission to figure out a way to improve things, doing whatever it takes to fashion a fit between unique-but-square-shaped children and round classroom expectations.
Matt offers to see Josiah for a couple of counseling sessions. I study Karla. It amazes me how her expression stays the same, like makeup. It’s applied in the morning and nothing seems to alter it. It’s because her mind is made up: Josiah’s a loser, and there’s nothing to be done. Jesus. She’s missing his brilliance.
I start to draw in a deep breath but switch course and blurt out the obvious. “He’s bored! I was in your class last week observing Simon, and I was bored too. How do you expect a bright kid to stay engaged when all you do is read out of a textbook?”
My pounding heart is making it hard to breathe. All at once, I know who Josiah reminds me of: Bobby, a homely dark-haired kid from my childhood. He was in the highest reading group, an Eagle, and no one told him how smart he was.
Karla turns to me. I catch an almost hateful glare flare up in her eyes. I turn away. I have nothing more to say.
“You’re missing the point,” she says in a voice devoid of inflection. “I wouldn’t bring a child to the SIT meeting if the problem was merely boredom. I’m here because I know there’s something seriously wrong.”
My fist clenches under the table. “Such as?”
“There’s something wrong with Josiah’s brain, and he needs help.”
Wrong with his brain? What in God’s name could be wrong with a kid who’d rather read than listen to her monotone?
“Karla,” I snap. “I can guarantee you his brain was fine until he entered your class.”
The air drains from the conference room, and my heart goes staccato in my chest. I see Matt’s jaw open, but I can’t stop myself. “In fact, it’s still fine,” I say. All three of them stare at me. Karla’s made-up face looks as though it’s about to crack into a million pieces, and I see pain in her eyes. I squeeze my right thigh so hard a welt forms, and I realize it is the silence I can’t stand.
“I’m sorry. I need to leave.” My chair scrapes the burnished cement floor. I shove the meeting notes into my briefcase and stride out of the stuffy room. Damn! I blew it, and Matt will be upset with me. But I’m right. Karla has no business announcing there’s something wrong with Josiah’s brain. I wish I could move him out of her class.
Poor kid.
~CHAPTER 3~
2005
IT’S MONDAY. A new week, a new start, and my morning schedule is packed with three back-to-back meetings starting at eight o’clock. I’m not worried about the first two; it’s the nine thirty meeting with the third-grade team that’s giving my stomach butterflies. They plan to discuss Kaylee Leman, whom I evaluated last spring. Since Kaylee is already in special education and they have concerns, this must mean it’s a meeting to consider “retaining” her. They know my views about keeping a kid back—generally, it’s not a good idea. I’m not the only one who has this opinion; the National Association of School Psychologists agrees. So why have they invited me? Regardless, I am determined not to behave the way I did with Karla.
The first two meetings go well, strengthening my fledgling confidence. The initial meeting is with a high-achieving parent concerned that her first-grade son is not reading chapter books as she did at age six. She suspects a disability. Had I dared to share how long it took me to learn to read a chapter book, I’m sure she’d have stared in disbelief. The second appointment is a consultation session with Tina Luca. Tina is a first-year kindergarten teacher gifted with five-year-old Jason, a pudgy redhead who is brilliant and has autism. I love it that she too understands that he will teach her a set of lessons absent from the best of textbooks. Tina embraces my idea of enlisting other kindergartners to be social ambassadors to Jason. I wish I’d had a teacher like her in kindergarten. I had felt equally clueless, not with reading social cues, but with reading letters.
I leave the kindergarten class, making my way to Jan Kramer’s third-grade classroom with rising optimism. I flash back to the first day I met Kaylee, a year ago last spring, when she was referred for an evaluation. She reminded me of Ramona Quimby from Beverly Cleary’s series of children’s novels. Ramona, age eight—short hair cast askew, freckles, and huge blue knowledge-seeking eyes. I had asked Kaylee my usual opening questions, including, “What are your dreams for the future?”
“I’m going to be a scientist and discover ways to save giant panda bears from becoming instinct,” she replied.
I had gently corrected her, saying the word was extinct.
“No,” she said assuredly, “it’s instinct, because exit means to leave, and that’s not what we want.”
She went on to share everything she had learned about the bears from the Discovery Channel, and I recall thinking, There is so much more she could learn from books. Please, dear God, help this child learn to read.
Kaylee met the state’s criteria for special education services in the simplest of ways—a significant discrepancy between her IQ and her reading level. Her intellig
ence was apparent within the first five minutes of conversation. One look at a writing sample, and I knew she’d qualify. However, test scores were required to quantify these simple observations. It’s the documentation of a severe discrepancy between a child’s so-called potential and his or her academic achievement that qualifies a child such as Kaylee for special education.
But documenting a severe discrepancy has never been enough to satisfy me.
My thirst is to understand why a bright child can’t make reasonable progress with reasonable support. This is the quest that has me chasing after a range of additional aptitude and process measures looking for answers. At the very least, I want to be helpful to those whose job it is to open the doors and make reading possible. I understand. I started out as a special education teacher and was handed plenty of evaluation reports full of meaningless numbers. I know in the hidden recesses of my heart that my recommendations also fall short: eight to fifteen pages documenting failure and two to three paragraphs of questionable analysis and suggestions aimed at being helpful. If I had better tools and more time, it would be the other way around. In the end, I’m not so sure my reports matter. What does matter is a teacher who cares, believes, and has the skill to put these qualities to use.
Jan Kramer’s classroom is set up in a cooperative learning style—two desks wedged together facing two other desks to make a foursome. The chairs sit fixed, empty, and waiting. The classroom walls are sugared with displays of color and a plethora of words. I see the life cycle of butterflies and moths and realize an entire wall is dedicated to environmental science, Kaylee’s favorite subject.
“Dr. Meyers, thanks for joining us,” Jan says, motioning me to the oblong table in the back of the room.
Her formality irritates me. Jan appears to be about ten years older than I am, but this might be an illusion. She wears her iron-gray hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. I’ve inherited my father’s slow-to-gray hair genes, and my tendency toward quick and practical leaves me with a no-fuss short clip.
Once Upon a Time a Sparrow Page 2
