by Kurt Caswell
Bob King showed me into his office, and we sat down, him behind the desk and me in front of it. I could see a long way south from the office window, the desert golden and empty, stretching far and away.
“This is Borrego,” he said enthusiastically. “I hope you’re settling in. If you like the outdoors, this is a great place to be.”
He sounded like he was trying to sell me the job, to convince me to say yes, but I already had.
“You see that out there?” he said, standing up.
I stood with him and we looked off through the window. I could see even farther now, down into the valley and across, up into a high plateau of trees and shrubs and cactus visible where the sun went down.
“That’s the Cibola country,” he said. “The Continental Divide runs through it, and another piece lies farther east surrounding Mount Taylor. There’s all kinds of mines and old homesteads and wild places down there. And beyond that is Zuni. A whole different world. That’s why I live here,” he said. “I love that country down there.”
We stared out for a few moments more and then returned to our seats.
“I’ll have to explore all that,” I said. “I love getting outside.”
He nodded. “How was your first day?”
“It was okay,” I said. “It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I remember when I first arrived here. I was completely overwhelmed. You know the teacher you replaced was here for seven years.”
Was this the term he was asking me to fill?
“Seven years,” he said again. “She called me just recently,” he went on, “said she really missed the kids at Borrego. That’s the part she really missed. These kids.”
“And why did she leave?”
“She loved it here. She really did. Really got involved with the community. She was attending ceremonies and getting invitations to people’s homes. That’s a big deal around here. If you get invited to a Navajo’s home, that’s really something. It means they trust you. It means you’re like one of the family.”
But my predecessor’s story was not so rosy as Bob King made it out to be. Later I learned that the school administration had strongly encouraged her to leave. She was mentally ill, people said, and likely using something with a needle. Some days she showed up at school barely able to speak. She was a complete tragedy, a liability, a lost opportunity for the students at Borrego, who would attend her class and come away with nothing at all. I did not know it at the time, but Bob King was lying to me, padding the truth anyway. He offered me a Borrego of great beauty and natural power, of community solidarity and family values. He was telling me I had made the right choice by coming to Borrego, and that here I would find a life worth living. Was this the life he imagined for himself, but didn’t have? Was he exhausted by trying to fill so many vacant posts at the school, and hoping I’d stay on a couple years? Was he, like any parent, protecting me from a harder truth?
I noticed the cell phone on Bob King’s desk, a three-watt bag phone.
“Does that thing work from here?” I asked.
“Sure. Mostly,” he said. “There’s a repeater tower just south of here. It works on a clear day anyway. Those little cell phones don’t work up here at all.” He paused. “A teacher like you,” he said, changing the subject, “doesn’t stay in a place like this. You’ll have other options next year, you know. Other schools will want you. But you are welcome here for as long as you want. I want you to stay.”
He said it longingly, like he was talking about himself. Of course he hadn’t seen me teach yet. We’d only spent a few hours together, and that included the interview.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s nice of you to say.” Then I added, “The phone at my place doesn’t work. Who can I ask about that?”
“I mean that,” he said. “You’re welcome here as long as you want to stay. Whatever you need, just ask. I’ll try to get it for you. I just want you to have a good first week. A good first year.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
I did feel welcome, at least now, and the stress and failure of my first day seemed to be falling away. I would be ready in the morning for the second day. And I felt charged up about exploring the country around Borrego and the rest of Navajoland. I had that to look forward to, but I wanted to resolve this issue with the telephone.
“What about the phone?” I said. “How can I get it working?”
“Oh, that,” he said. “Maybe you can’t. I’m not sure. Not so many lines coming in here.”
“Really?” I said. “How do I find out? I didn’t know I might not have a phone.”
My ties to the outside world were being stripped away, one by one. I had no TV, and my radio seemed attracted to stations broadcasting only in Navajo. And now the news that I might have no telephone? If I looked at the bright side, perhaps I’d get lots of reading done. If I looked at the dark side, perhaps I’d be undone.
“Try calling Navajo Communications,” Bob King said. “They take care of things up here. They can tell you. Don’t count on it, though. Took me years to get a phone at my house.” Then he said, “Well, I have to get home to supper. Try calling from Deena’s phone tomorrow in the office. I’m sure there’s a solution. And stop in to say hello anytime, or if you need anything.”
“Okay,” I said. “I will. See you tomorrow.”
We shook hands and said good night.
Like most new teachers, I wanted my students to like and respect me, which are not necessarily the same thing, especially with middle schoolers. The boundary between the two is delicate, and different with every class, with every group. Earning admiration and respect is a skill most teachers cannot learn in an education program and the skill all teachers need most. Perhaps apprenticing with a master teacher might help one make long strides in this direction. Not student teaching (which I never had to endure), but apprenticing. The other way to learn the balance between being liked and respected is by teaching, by trial and error, or rather, as it turned out for me, trial by fire.
By the next morning, I had thrown out all the lesson plans I wrote in the library, thinking I needed to start at the beginning. I would begin the first day with a lecture expounding the value of reading and writing the English language. All instruction at Borrego was in English, with the exception of Linda Bitsy’s Navajo language and culture class. All the students spoke English, but for many of them, it was their second language. They grew up speaking Navajo, especially in the home, where grandparents and sometimes parents did not speak English at all. So speaking Navajo was essential to home and community life, and speaking English was essential in the classroom and most everywhere else.
I hadn’t begun to get mixed up in taking a position on how an increasing reliance on English could result in the loss of the Navajo language, as is the story with so many other American Indian languages. I suppose it is possible with Navajo, but there are some 300,000 Navajo people living on and off their 27,000-square-mile reservation and, among them, plenty of Navajo speakers to keep the language alive. Besides that, I had been hired to teach English by Navajos, not the Bureau of Indian Affairs or a white school board deciding what was best for Navajo people. That is, however, the way it used to be, following the Navajo’s “defeat” by Colonel Kit Carson, and their subsequent imprisonment at Bosque Redondo. It was part of the U.S. government’s assimilation policy, their attempt to transform Navajo people into little white farmers, pressuring schools to teach English and forbid the use of Navajo. Now the Navajo Nation was regaining control of its own education system, deciding for itself that English was a powerful tool and should be a central part of the school curriculum. I was in the service of the Navajo Nation, not the U.S. government, and I would do what it asked of me.
I decided that following my lecture, I would ask my classes to consider what I had said, then respond in the journals they had begun writing in with Linda. I wanted them to write vigorously, without stopping, for fift
een minutes or so. Then students would volunteer to read aloud, which would fuel a vibrant discussion about learning, reading and writing, the value of mastering English, and their individual life goals.
For homework I would ask my students to read the next lesson in their textbook, picking up where Linda left off. I had not seen their textbook yet. I had asked Bob King for copies of the books for each of my classes after he made the job offer, but he told me not to worry about those details. We’d figure it all out when I arrived, he said. This was fine by me, as I knew I would not have much time to look the books over before I arrived. If Linda had not used the book during that first week, that was fine too. We’d begin at the beginning. I just needed to dive in, to get going. Whatever I assigned as homework would be homework for me, too.
My longer vision was that I would open my students to an entirely new world of thinking and feeling and responding to the world around them. They would use the lens of literature to access this new world, and they would use their own writing to explore this new world, which would then prompt them to not only continue on in their education but also travel and explore and experience. They would recognize me as the source of all this goodness, and they would love me for it.
My seventh-grade class filed in looking stern and united, as if they had determined already that they didn’t like me. In fact, I was certain they had. Yesterday’s class visit proved it. Caleb Benally rejected me outright, demanding that Linda Bitsy remain their teacher. And the rest of the class, in their silence, acknowledged that Caleb was speaking for them too. How was I to overcome this? In Japan, I was received with such openness and generosity, respect and attention in the classroom that I had had no need or opportunity to develop classroom management skills. I floated along on a little jet stream of good feelings—this teaching thing is easy, I told myself, and I must be a natural at it. But here, faced with my first class on my first day, I wondered if I wasn’t doomed before I started. I checked myself, however. I did not know anything about these young people. I had no idea who they were, where they were headed, and what they needed to get there. Once I learned these things, I told myself, I would be able to develop course goals that would make sense to their everyday lives. The first day with a new teacher, I counseled, they were bound to be a bit reserved, a bit wary. I was an outsider, after all. The worst thing I could do was take up a defensive posture. If I did, so would they. Despite my first-day jitters, I had to open myself to them. Only then would they open themselves to me.
The students sat down at their desks. No one said a word. I surveyed the room. They looked attentive anyway, even studious in their silence, ready to get going. The long row of windows on the north side brightened the classroom, and we were surrounded by images of the natural world: whales and animals of the Serengeti, a wall calendar with pictures of wolves, a periodic table of elements, a poster of dinosaurs. Cabinets filled with beakers and test tubes and things for measuring and cutting lined the back of the room. I had always loved science, especially as a way to explore and understand the natural world, but the science classroom seemed a strange atmosphere for reading and writing. Or maybe it was the perfect classroom. Be flexible. Be malleable. Adapt, I told myself.
I called roll, and everyone responded in turn by raising their hand. I marked the sheet and left it on the door for someone to pick up. So far, so good.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s begin.” I started in on my lecture. “Good morning. I’m Mr. Caswell, and—”
“Where’s Linda?” someone said.
I stopped. “She’s out in the hogan,” I said. “She has a class out there this period. I’ll be here from now on.” Of course they knew this already, but perhaps they needed an official announcement. “I’m your new language arts teacher,” I said.
I heard a few groans.
“I’m not staying with you, bilagáana. I’m goin’ out there,” said Maria Young. “I’m not stayin’ in here.”
I heard snickering from the back of the room.
Maria had thick curly hair cut at shoulder length, and wide, round eyes. Based on where she sat, in the front row, I had pegged her as an eager, compliant student, until she used that word. Bilagáana, the first Navajo word I learned, means “white person.” Some white people who live in Navajoland use the word in reference to themselves. Because Navajos often include their clan names when introducing themselves, a white person might use the tag bilagáana because they have no clan. In context, though, there was nothing neutral or descriptive about Maria’s use of the word. She seemed to be insulting me. Or was I just overly sensitive? The Japanese equivalent, gaijin, can have a negative connotation. It means “foreigner” or “outsider,” which may be used simply to express: “This person is not Japanese.” However, it may also be used in a derogatory fashion, as in: “Go home, gaijin!” I couldn’t help but feel this was what Maria intended.
I tried to brush it off. I tried to ignore it. “You can’t go out there,” I said. “Linda has another class out there. You can’t go out and interrupt her.”
“I don’t care,” Maria said. “She likes us. She’ll let us in. We can make stuff out there.”
“Well, maybe so,” I said. “But you’re in language arts this period. You need this class.”
“No, I don’t,” said Maria.
Then Jolanda Jones said, “Yeah, me neither. I don’t need it.”
Jolanda was tall and wore her hair long and straight down her back. Her face was round and lightly soft, pretty. She looked older than the other girls, and walked confidently, with her shoulders squared back, her chest thrust out. She looked angry.
“Yeah. Let’s go out to the hogan with Linda,” someone else said.
“Right,” said Jolanda. She made a move as if to get up.
I hadn’t expected this. A mutiny. This wasn’t going at all the way I imagined it, and my little teaching fantasy vanished. Still, the best thing to do, I thought, was go ahead with my lesson plan. I had invested some effort in preparing for this day, and I wasn’t ready to give up on it. Even if the students didn’t respond to me the way I thought they should, at least they would receive the information I had prepared for them. They would still learn something, and I’d send them home with work to do for the next class.
“No one is going out to the hogan,” I said. “This is language arts. So let’s begin.”
Jolanda sat back down. I continued on with my lecture.
“Why don’t you cut your hair?” Maria burst out.
“Yeah,” another girl said. “You should cut it. It looks stupit.”
Then Clemson Benally, Caleb’s cousin, said, “Yeah, hey, why do you have it like that?” and he grinned at Caleb, who thrust his lips out and made a clicking sound in his mouth. “You should cut it, or you should braid it,” Clemson said.
Then Caleb said, “Or you should wear it tied up in back in a little tamale like Thomas,” and then he clicked again in his mouth and everyone laughed.
Thomas, the librarian, was into his sixties maybe, and he wore his long graying hair tied in a traditional chongo knot, a little bun bound with cotton yarn. Most of the men and boys at Borrego wore their hair cut short, or even buzzed tight against their skulls like marines.
“Why did you come here, anyway?” Jolanda said.
“Yeah,” everyone said. “Why did you come here? Why don’t you go home?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you go home?” Jolanda said.
That stung me. “Why don’t you go home?” I had not expected this much resistance from the students. In all honesty, I hadn’t expected anything. It all happened so fast. My departure from Hokkaido. The interview at Borrego. The packing up and moving in. I had been traveling from place to place with relative ease, and why should Borrego be any different? I would show up, and do good work. Meet good people, and learn from them. And maybe they would learn from me too. When the time came, I’d move on, a wave of good feelings following after me. It was the kind of simple and rewarding life I had al
ways imagined. But this?
I heard the words again in my head: Why don’t you go home? Right, I thought, why don’t I go home? As I asked myself this question, I felt hurt, insulted, rejected, and my anger grew.
“That’s rude,” I said. “You can’t say that.”
Jolanda smiled at me and said something in Navajo.
“What was that?” I said. “I don’t speak Navajo.”
She didn’t answer.
Then George George, a skinny, wiry kid with freckles splashed across his cheeks and hair that looked like his grandmother had dropped a bowl on his head and cut around it, raised his hand. The classroom went still. George smiled, his hand in the air as if he wanted to say something important. Maybe his grandmother had used a bowl to cut his hair, but no matter, he was about to take my side. He was about to address his classmates about their rudeness. I called on him.
“George?” I said, unsure whether I was calling his first name or his last.
“Mr. Caswell,” he said, and then he spoke along string of Navajo, in which I heard again the word bilagáana. He rested a moment, switched to English, and said, “How come you got yellow teeth?”
The whole room burst into laughter.
I stood before them, anger and frustration welling inside me. They had me, and I knew it. What was worse, they knew it. I became suddenly self-conscious about my teeth, and I became suddenly aware of the door, as if I was about to make a run for it. The class laughed and laughed. I frowned and fumed.
Then I remembered the detention room. Earlier that morning I had met Dallas West, the detention monitor, and he showed me his office. If I needed help in the classroom, he told me, I could call on him. He’d come by and pick up any student who was causing trouble. Well, they were all causing trouble now, and I wanted them all to be punished. But I wasn’t going to quit just yet.
