On My Side

February 2nd was my birthday.  All the time I think to myself, what if a month from now everything is totally different than it is today?  What if a year from now everything is way different than you could ever imagine?  Well, everything is totally different today.  Then a year ago.  Then a month ago.  Then two weeks ago.

My students wear the same clothes to school, everyday.  Not just the same outer sweater or hoodie, but the same pants, shirt and outer
wear.

I heard my phone buzz in my bag.  I was leaning over a student's desk, trying to help her with her classwork.  I figured it was a friend texting me and ignored it.  I walked past the front office of the school after the class and saw a complete cluster fuck.  I pulled out my phone and saw that the message was some sort of tornado thing.  I continued with my day, assuming we'd hear an announcement if anything was going on.

One of my best students was absent the day of his standardized test.  The one I have to administer.  I learned how to do it, barely, two weeks ago and have done nothing but that ever since.  I stood in the dismissal car pool line, one of my school duties.  I saw his mom ride up in her compact car to pick up his other three brothers.  He smiled at my serenely from the back seat as he glided by, wearing the same sweater he always wears to school.

"TORNADO!"  a teacher screamed, running through the hallways.
"GET IN THE HALL!"
Kids and teachers filtered out and assumed the position.  I motioned to one of the few children I knew to get on his knees and bend over.  I've been through dozens of tornado drills, some of them not drills.  I was embarrassed that I felt like I was going to cry.  This thing could be real.  It could rip the roof off, plow down this janky ass school.  And every kid here could die.  And no one even sounded an alarm, except for the teacher that lost his shit and ran down the halls.  I watched one of my kids, Kavi, his hand over his mouth and the other over his forehead, smash himself into place.

I stood in the dismissal line.  Two police officers walked from their car into the school.  They returned with a student between them, put him in the back of the car and drove away.

"I have to report another testing violation." I told my assistant principal, after saving the information for hours until I signed in the rest of my materials.
"She entered the room, I told her that even teachers could not enter the testing room and she told me to tell you that she was "not going to pee herself", then she entered that little kindergarten bathroom between the two rooms."
I saw the administrator's face turn to disgust.
"That...bathroom?"
"Yeah."
My school is old.  Back when kindergarten rooms had these little water closets off to the side.  The idea that an adult would use THAT BATHROOM and, ignore any semblance of the presence of standardized testing because they refuse to walk down the hall and use an adult bathroom was baffling.  And, I was alienating my new co-workers by telling on them.

I returned to the kindergarten room the next morning, to finish my testing.  The administrator was with me.
"So, I spoke with Ms. Snyder about testing and she kind of grumbled, but it is what it is and I think she understands."  she told me.
Then, she started pushing this 1940s cloak closet in front of the door Ms. Snyder kept invading through.  I grabbed the other side of it and pulled it in front of the door.
"Thanks!" I said sheepishly.
"We will finish today."
Gustavo watched us, wearing his cute daily sweater.
"Ms. Barrett is much younger than you." he said, peacefully.
I cringed.  Shit, am I really so old looking?  I reminded myself that he was seven, didn't know that he had totally crushed my spirit, and that Ms. Barrett really was young and beautiful.

"Kavi,"  I called during dismissal, "I owe you...."
I released a couple of candies into his hand.  I gave them to the kids after they finished the hours long, standardized test.  I watched him when he stood up from the tornado and saw him pull the candy from his pocket that I had given him that day.  It was melted and flat.
He fist pumped me and took the candy from my hand.  He promptly turned and gave one of them to the student behind him.
He was wearing his same outerwear the he has on everyday, but underneath, he had on a long-sleeved red shirt, for Valentine's Day.

Don't Stop Believin'

I took a left past the Sikh Temple, its towers beautifully lit in the early morning darkness, and into the neighborhood behind it.  It looked like the neighborhood I grew up in after we moved to Georgia and went from the apartments to a home.  But the homes here were a little more raggedy than ours was.  The school even looked similar, but a little not-so-nice.

I got up early Sunday morning and dropped Alec off at the airport so that he could visit his dad.  I hate it when he is gone, but knew that it was important.  I roared home and went back to bed.  I woke up, startled, when I heard Alec walking through the house.
"My dad died.  My brother called when I was going to the gate.  I ubered home."

I watched the other ESOL teachers at a neighboring school, not so neighboring, thirty minutes away but in the same district, administer a standardized test that I would at some point have to administer.
The kindergartner was a bit unfocused.  She could not identify the word "yellow" on the test.
"My dad had to drive to visit a friend...."  she offered, "his friend was arrested."
"He did not have papers so he brought him clothes and money....".
I really thought her discourse was above the "yellow" range.

I walked down the stairs from the parking lot, to the school.  I saw a little outcrop of vegetation by the handrail.
A succulent garden, I thought.
But, it wasn't.  It was a crop of weeds with purple flowers on top.

I went into the place where I have an empty desk. The kids were playing "Black Butterfly" on their violins in the back of the room.  It is an awful song that sounded equally awful on the violin.

I was surprised when I met one of my first graders.
"I love Minter's Creek High School." he announced.
"I can't wait to go there."
I shuddered.  I started my teaching career there.  I have never been treated so badly in my life.  I fled the school and the district.  Now, I was back.  I watched him rave about the school and I saw visions of Adrian, the teenager from that school that we visited for months in the detention center, praying that he wouldn't be deported.  And he wasn't.  I worried that my PTSD was showing all over my face and hoped that Minter's Creek was a new and wonderful place, now.

We experienced one of the coldest nights of the year metro-Atlanta had to offer.  Yeah, a little below 30 degrees.  But then, I smelled gas.  They turned it off while we waited for the plumbers to fix the lines that go to our water heater.  And I took cold, hooker baths for days, just trying not to reek while I went to my new job.

"So, we really want to start this ACCESS test on Monday..." one of my administrators let me know.
"Usually, people complete the training weeks before the testing begins, over several days....but..."
"I'll get it done on Saturday."  I answered, knowing it was my birthday.
"Great!"  she answered.

I walked into the room, Monday morning, grumpy from a missed birthday and on my first day of a cold.  I sat at my empty desk, cramming to give the test I was supposedly able to do after hours of online training.  One of the many subs that have taken the place of teachers who have quit came in the room.
"Hey.. " I said.
"Just so you know, I'm going to have to test in this room today, I don't know if they told you...."
"Okay!  There aren't any classes in here for an hour at 12:30."
"The test takes a long time..." I started to answer.
"Not for these kids." she responded, bluntly.
Why.  Why?  Because they're stupid.  Because they don't want to learn.  Don't waste your time. They're shit.
I've tried to stay sunny, but I was pissed.  My eyes narrowed.
"This one will take a long time."  I answered and walked away.

I stood in the carpool line, watching parents drive up to pick up their kids.  A pretty woman rolled up and rolled her window down, motioning toward me.  Her son walked toward the car.
"I'm British!"  she announced, with an accent.
"Okay, um, yeah!"  I muttered in response, and smiled.
"These people are never around white people...." the teacher to my right muttered.
"Segregation is wrong."

I stood at my post, watching the kids walk out of school.
"BITCH" a kid mouthed at me.
I didn't care.  I watched teachers yell at kids.  I watched kids cry.  I felt like I had quickly gone through the phases of culture shock and the honeymoon phase was over and the hate phase was there.
"This school is bad." a second grader announced while he walked by.

For a minute, I thought I saw Mahja in the hall, Mahja from the Housing Authority, but then I knew it wasn't him.  And, I was relieved he wasn't there.  And then, I felt guilty.  And then I wondered why every educator, every educator that claims they care, that is better versed in general education than I am, wasn't standing right where I was.

                                 The Emperor's Guard
I did notice as I walked that Amos had stayed right next to me. And Jack was close on the other side of me. And Miles was in front of us and Henry was in back of us. They were surrounding me as we walked through the crowds of kids. Like I had my own emperor's guard. 

I read my section aloud to my students at the Housing Authority and then, I closed the book.
"What are you doing!" Aazim screamed.
"That is the most important part!  He has friends now, that is all he ever wanted!  You just stopped!  You just acted like it was nothing!"
"You're just like Miss Baranco!  You taught Spanish and you quit and teach ESOL!"

The next morning, I walked into the room where my empty desk was, again.  The kids were playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" on their violins.

It sounded alright.

*Quote, Wonder RJ Palacio