I Can't Make it Rain

On the first Tuesday of our winter break, I stood next to a multilane highway, the cars flying past and wind whipping around me.  It was cold.  A couple of hundred other teachers and parents stood with me.  My sign said:  THE HOSPITALS ARE FULL.  IT'S TOO SOON.

We were in front of the mega-complex that houses Human Resources, the Superintendent and Board's offices, two schools, the testing warehouse and the offices for international student services.  It looks like a mall, and it was completely empty, as the majority of people that rarely interface with students anyway were enjoying their break and would not be sent back into schools face-to-face at any time.  Actually, many of them left early for the break, without even bothering to process months old paperwork that would allow vulnerable staff to stay virtual even during the upcoming, face-to-face return.  It was appalling.  

It felt odd driving to the complex way out by the perimeter and parking my car in the lot of the district that employs me, pulling my sign out from the back seat and walking up front to protest it.  But, I wasn't going to park in the Hardee's parking lot, and I feel like I should own them as much as they own me.  I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for tow trucks to pull up or some clandestine guard to close all the gates and lock our cars inside.  I found a place on the highway, spaced myself at least ten feet on either side from the others and held up my sign.  

Eighteen wheelers blew their massive horns and held up fists in solidarity.  Pick-up trucks full of workmen honked and waived.  The MARTA bus drivers blinked their lights and raised fists.  All of the people that I thought would think, shit, I'm back at work, you should be too, showed overwhelming support.  My eyes kept tearing up, which I mentally blamed on the wind.  

I know there are a lot of people that want their kids back in school, face-to-face.  Right now, Georgia is facing record high numbers of COVID transmission.  Both the county where I live and the county where I work are in the highest level of spread that the charts record.  Statewide hospitals are 89% full and in the metro-Atlanta area, most are more than 92% full.  My district adopted a new metric that would evaluate when we should go back to face-to-face school, discounting a previous metric that had been surpassed five times over by active cases.  By their own internal memo, we were over the percentage-positive amount that would indicate full virtual learning according to the new metric on the day they told us we had to come back into the building, five days a week, on January 4th.  They have since buried the initial memo, leaving no guidelines at all.  Cases will be spiking in the next few weeks because of holiday travel.  The bars and restaurants were not closed and the schools opened, as Fauci recommended.  The schools are simply being opened.  Our schools have not been outfitted with plexiglass partitions or updated ventilation systems.  The mitigation remedies are:  everyone wears masks (until some kid pulls his off), tell them to wash their hands, clean your classroom a lot with the supplies we claim we'll provide, make the kids social distance (right) and some one will do contact tracing, but we won't tell you if there is an outbreak in the school.  The majority of my students have told me that their parents do not intend to send them back face-to-face, because they don't think it is safe.  In the beginning, no student would even be face-to-face more than two days a week and virtual the rest of the week.  Teachers will be faced with the mess of teaching in-person and virtually at the same time. There is a vaccine that is currently circulating through the populace.  Soon, the ordinary flu season will be over.  Why now?  Why can't we wait eight more weeks?  How much more will really be lost?

In the last week, two more people I know have come down with COVID.  A friend's mother died of it a couple of weeks ago.  A co-worker of my niece and his girlfriend both got it, leaving my niece running around during the "holiday season" getting tested.  One of the cooks that works directly with Alec got it a couple of weeks ago, leaving Alec scrambling.  

I made a new sign.  It's bigger than the first one.  I will be out there again tomorrow, standing on the highway in the wind, hoping someone is paying attention.  

*Title from "You Don't Love Me Yet", Roky Erickson

2020

"I used to like reading and writing, math...." Prem said absentmindedly.  It was after school and we were chatting while he sat in his closet and I sat on my couch, fifteen miles apart.

"But not really anymore..."

Why?  Because the instruction at our school is so boring?  Because all most of the teachers do is yell and demean the kids?  They are sucking the life out of Prem.  Out of everybody.  I spent the whole weekend daydreaming about getting him into a private school or winning the lottery so that I could buy his family a big house in a good school district.  I asked if he could get tested for gifted, anything to not kill his naturally inquisitive instincts.  Nothing worked. 

 

"Ms. Wagner, the reason I have my camera off is because I'm going to the bathroom."  Baby Gustavo informed me.  I winced, but thankfully the microphone was off, too.

I watched Paw Ku clutch rice into her hands, making it into balls.  She handed it to her four year old brother and he ate it.  She took little pieces from the plate for herself too, with her hands. 
"Do you eat the rice plain or with stuff on it?"  I asked.
"We eat it with fish," Kaw explained, from his separate remote condition.  The 'we' being Karen.
"Sauce or actual fish?"  I asked.
"Fish!" he responded.
"But, I don't eat the eyes."  he continued.

I hadn't realized that was going on.
Paw Ku held up a whole cooked fish to the camera.  It was picked nearly clean.  She dug the eye out and gave it to her brother, who ate it and grinned at all of us.  He's only four.  He knows my name and chants "I killed Ms. Wagner" when he is the imposter on Among Us.  

I sat, spacing out, watching one of the homeroom teachers blab on and on and on.

"What is inside my mouth....?" an un-muted student whispered. 

We were finally done with math.  After my last class ends, I spend most of the afternoons helping my fourth graders with whatever they need.  We do social studies, science, math, whatever.  When we are finished, someone usually starts a game of Among Us and we play and talk and listen to music for a while.  

"If I could have any pet, I would definitely have a crow."  Paw Ku mentioned randomly.

"Or an alligator.  And a lion."

"I gotta go!"  Bway Pa announced.

"I have to take a shower before it gets dark!  The light is broken in the bathroom and it's really dark!"

We all waived goodbye.  

Kaw has been coming to our one-on-one reading class religiously at 8:30, every Wednesday, the day when we don't have normal classes.  I'm throwing everything at it and I think he's doing really well.  I only plan for an hour, but we usually go over and at times the lessons have been almost an hour and a half.  He doesn't complain.  Actually, it's usually hard to get him to hang up.  I had to reschedule one of the Wednesdays because I wasn't at work.  We decided to meet after school on the Tuesday before.  When Kaw came onto the call, he was acting weird.  He hates turning his camera on and I don't make him, but he wouldn't even speak.  Finally, I heard a whisper.

"I can't talk because my brother is sleeping..."

"He's in the room with you?"  I whispered back.

"Yes...."  

I heard a baby start to cry.

"Oh god, Kaw, I'm sorry.  Let's read together another day, okay?  How about Thursday, after school?"

"Okay." he answered and we read Thursday, instead.

"I'm negative!"  Mario announced one day in class.

"Oh Mario, did you have to get tested?"  I asked.

"Yeah.  My mom's boyfriend has COVID so we all got tested.  My sister is negative too, but my older brother and sister and my mom's results aren't back yet."  he explained.

"Does your mom's boyfriend stay at his own house or is he with you?"  I responded.

"Oh no, he lives here with us.  His dad does too."

I saw Baby Gustavo's mom walk into the room behind him in her robe, waving at him to turn his camera off.  And then, I heard Gustavo's voice.

"My mom is crying.  Our friend from the congregation is dead.  Of COVID.  They wouldn't even let us visit her in the hospital."  he explained.  

"My mom had it three weeks ago."  Jorge mentioned.

"She's a nurse.  She's back at work now."

"I am so sorry.  I am just so sorry."  

I didn't know what else to say.  By the end of the week, five of the seven people living in Mario's house had active COVID.  Mario, who is eight, and his twelve year-old sister were caring for them, delivering plates of food outside of the infected's closed doors and running away, so that they could step out and take their food back into their quarantine rooms.  

One Wednesday, I spent nearly the entire day on calls with my students.  An hour in the morning with Kaw, then multiple hours in the afternoon with Kaw, Prem and a lot of the rest of fourth grade.  We did math.  We did science.  It was exhausting.  

"Watch this!"  Paw Ku announced.

I could see that she was outside, walking with her laptop.  The sky was gray and her face looked exhilarated, her long dark straight hair whipping back as she started to run.  Then, she was in someone else's house.  Then she was in front of Kaw's laptop, while Kaw danced around in the background, one of the few times I have seen his whole face in months.  Or ever.  They both started jumping around and chasing each other. 

One Wednesday morning, Kaw and I watched a speed lapsed video of hot air balloons over New Mexico.  It was beautiful.

"Oh wow...." he said quietly.

"Yeah...." I responded.

"Would you do that?"

"YES" he responded.  

  

Out of nowhere, our district changed the metric they use to decide if we are coming back into the building.  They changed it to one that will make us come back into the building in a matter of weeks.  It was shocking.  

"Do you think your parents will keep you at home or send you back to the building?"  I asked my students.

"School's better virtual."  Prem answered.

"We're not going anywhere.  Our house is like a prison, but it's a good prison."  Gustavo informed me, while snuggled under a fluffy blanket in his underwear and a wife beater with his brother and their laptops.

"We like going to school this way."  he continued.  

"I got in trouble in school...."  Kaw told me.

"How?  You wouldn't do anything bad...."

"I got in trouble because I didn't know anything."  he answered.

"I remember that!"  Paw Ku responded.

"Remember when that boy wouldn't stop trying to kiss me and grab my leg in kindergarten?  I ran away to my grandma's house, crying...."  she continued.  

"No."  Angel answered me, definitively and without explanation.

Our Story Begins...

Shutdown hasn't been everything that I hoped it would be.  I started taking classes to finish my reading endorsement in June, figuring that I needed to use this time well.  And, expensively.  I bombed through the second of three classes in the summer and then, started the horrific finisher in the fall, while trying to virtually teach.  What the fuck?  I thought.  I'm not working two jobs right now because I can't and I don't even have to drive to work, saving me a lot of time.  It has been a virtual nightmare.  I spent the Thanksgiving week break writing a sixty-eight page paper.  By choice.  Because by Monday, I have to work again.  

I've utilized some of what I learned during the endorsement.  I administered Kaw the diagnostic assessment of his reading ability the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving week.  I was shoddily taught on how to administer this thing and I tried to do it right, because I only took these fucking classes to figure how to help students that struggle to read.  They say to go two grades below a student's grade, to help build confidence.  He couldn't read any of the words on the second grade list and I had to go to rock bottom.  He was at a frustration level by what is considered a level below kindergarten, though he is in fourth grade.  I tried to pretend everything was okay, congratulating him and telling him he was doing great.  I, personally, was freaking out.  

"Okay, Kaw, thanks for working with me here.  I know this is boring, but I have to figure out what to teach you next.  It will get more interesting." I said after over an hour of diagnostic assessment.  
"Let's call it a day."
"But, can you help me with my other work?  And can you meet with me during the break or on the weekend?" he responded.
 "I am working with Bway Pa at 1:00 to do Social Studies work, do you want to join?  I don't want to wear you out...."
"I'll be there."  he responded, and he was.  

We finished the work.  Paw Ku piped up and presented her screen, she had finished earlier and was looking at pictures of traditional Thai dancers.  We looked at them, while Paw Ku talked about how beautiful they were.  

"Would you visit Thailand again, if you could?"  I asked. 

"NO."  Kaw responded.

"It is too dangerous."

"What if you could go to the  Karen villages, in the north, would you visit there?" I asked.

"I would go there, but the rest of Thailand, too dangerous..." Kaw and Paw Ku responded, unanimously. 

"I looked up the military...."  Paw Ku mentioned, showing her screen again.

"I'm sorry, Paw Ku, stop.  They are showing piles of dead people and we don't need to see that."  I responded.

Piles of dead Karen people.   

 

The Water Cycle

"Why do you think the third amendment is important?"  one of the teachers with which I virtually teach barked into the camera.
"Because no one wants soldiers tracking blood in the house on their dirty feet."  a student responded.  He was new.  A student that hadn't been taught to be submissive and passive.  One that was actually taught to speak in class and use his mind.   

I worked with fourth graders after school, because apparently school is for lectures and everything else is homework.  Even in elementary school.  The kids blow up my Google Classroom feed, screaming for help, even during the classes we sit in with their general ed. teachers. 

 
"Alright, water cycle.  What is it?"  I asked, while googling it on a different tab.  
"Water fall from sky...." Kaw answered, hesitantly.
"You are so right..." I responded, knowing it wasn't enough but typed it into his Google Slide for him, anyway.  He was trying.  And keyboarding skills are not a standard.  And, I will do anything for Kaw.  My mind drifted back a week ago and months ago.  He texted me on my fake Google Voice number during the first week of school, in August.  

"I am new boy." his text read.  Bway Pa and Paw Ku help him, I found out from the beginning.  

We have a freer schedule on Wednesdays and Kaw could easily take a day off from school.  But he doesn't.  He blows up my feed, asking for help.  We worked alone last Wednesday, on math of all things.  Some of my other students tried to come onto the call, but I insisted that I needed to work with Kaw, alone.  It was murderous, torturous work.  I hate math.  After an hour and a half of work, with Kaw speaking but his camera off, he asked me some questions.

"Will you keep helping me?" Kaw asked.

"Of course.  What worries you?  Why won't you speak in class?  Is it too many people?"

"I can't do anything.  Every time I talk people tell me to say it again.  They don't understand me.  And, I can't read and I can't write.  I can't do anything.  I like school here better than in Thailand, because they don't hit me.  But I can't do anything."

"Kaw?  I've noticed that whenever you see someone do something on a computer, you don't need the directions repeated.  You look at it once and you can do it, automatically.  I wish I could do that."  I answered.  

"Yeah, I can do that....."

"What do you think about me and you meeting every Wednesday, we can work on some things...."  I suggested.  

"Yes!"  he responded.

"What do you think about ten o'clock, is that a good time for you?"  I answered.

"I get up up early, how about eight thirty, is that a good time for you?" he asked replicating my speech.

"That's a perfect time for me, Kaw."  I responded.

"I will put up the link."

I have a lot more to say about Kaw, and the student I taught years ago that was killed this week, though he was still just a child.  But I don't think I can do all that right now.  I feel really tired. 

MAGA

I was sitting on my sister's porch, the only place I go besides the grocery store.  We live in Atlanta in a highly liberal neighborhood.  A pick-up truck roared by, with giant Trump flags on each sides of its bed.  We looked at each other.  What the fuck?

There is not a lot I can concentrate on.  I do my best to teach my classes from my couch.  I have been taking another reading instruction graduate class at Georgia State so that I can better serve my students.  I am never doing that again.  I detest academic writing and have done way too much of that in my life.  

I finished my paper last Saturday and went for a jog around the park.  I heard tires squealing and saw a pick up truck at a nearby intersection.  I heard shouting.  I inadvertently hunkered down, thinking of tires squealing in Charlottesville and Trump pick-up trucks.  Or maybe tensions were just high, because the election hadn't been called.  As I ran, I heard more clanging and honks.  A woman walked by, carrying her Biden-Harris sign.   

"Did they call Pennsylvania?"  I called.

"Yes!"  she responded, as cars honked at her and pots and pans clanged.

I got inside the house and turned on the TV.  I was stunned that they had called the whole election for Biden.  I thought they would equivocate it, make it conditional, say this that or the other, we'll just see.  The cover of the New York Times read:  BIDEN BEATS TRUMP.

I was surprised when I cried a little.  I just want him to go.  Trump has to go.  I jogged back to my sister's house.  The whole neighborhood was either dancing in the street, or lighting fireworks or shooting guns in the air.  Or just driving around, honking their horns. 

We uncapped a couple of beers.   Suddenly, a white pick-up truck tore down the street.  Giant Trump flags flowed from the back of the bed.  I couldn't believe they were here again.  In our neighborhood.  

I could see the woman in the passenger seat.  She was older and light haired.  Her face was in a grimace, mouth a-gap.  A black hole scream of a mouth.  It reminded me of Donald Sutherland in the seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  But, she had not been snatched.  

She was honestly terrorized that Donald Trump did not win again.  

Stars of Track and Field

"I hear that COVID voice again."  Alejandra mentioned absent-mindedly.  I stifled my inappropriate laughter.  The COVID voice belonged to another student's mother.  I looked at the little panels in our MEET.  Alejandra was wrapped in a blanket, obviously half awake.  Baby Gustavo was laying under the covers in his bed, wearing a wife beater and what we inadvertently discovered later when he got up, his underwear. Mashia was dressed and at the kitchen table, but rarely unmuted herself because we would either hear the COVID voice in the background or a wild call to prayer.  Pablo sat eating breakfast, a cheese stick in one hand and a Pepsi in the other.  He had some barbecue chips, later.   Mario didn't show, as usual.  

"Are you guys ready for the matching game, the vocabulary thing, or do you want to play something different?"

Pablo quickly unmuted himself.

"Among Us."  he requested.  

"Not during school!"  I responded.

"After!" 

"Then let me see Lola."  he responded.

We meet up a lot after school.  It takes up most of my planning time.  Occasionally we do school work, but the kids mainly just want to talk to each other.  Often, we play Among Us in a private match against each other, while we simultaneously talk on the MEET and listen to music. I've gotten better at Among Us after an unfortunate first day where I was killed over and over.  My students felt bad for me and quit killing me, simply leaving me standing in a corner with a pumpkin on my head.  

I voted.  During my lunch one day I drove down to our basketball arena, State Farm.  Alec and I both decided that was where we would early vote, mainly because they have hundreds of machines and the place is huge, as opposed to ten machines crammed into the public library.  A poll worker waived me in to free parking directly across the street and pointed to where I needed to go.  I don't go out very much and when I do, I realize I feel strange.  The sun seems really bright.  I feel kind of rumpled and puffy.  I stare at the ground or scope around, trying to jump away from people that get too close.  I always wear a mask and don't even bother with makeup anymore.  My hair is perpetually pulled back because it has gotten ridiculously long.  And for some reason, I randomly feel like crying.

I entered the arena and was met by enthusiastic young people working the poll, as opposed to the regular older set of poll workers.  They wore t-shirts that had a large basketball on it instead of a peach, but with a little green leaf on the top and adorned with the "I voted" banner.  They had plexiglass and hand sanitizer everywhere.  I got through quickly and walked past the bars and restaurants that people frequent during the games and thought of different times.  They were all shuttered.  I was surprised when they guided me right into the main arena.  I stood at the top of the stadium stairs and looked down at hundreds and hundreds of voting machines lined up on the basketball court.  And down I went to the floor and placed my vote on the same court that we watched LeBron James play on.   It was a strange sensation and I glanced up, thinking we maybe needed a cheering crowd.  But, the seats were all empty.  

I went back out into the bright sunlight and to the car, getting to the couch five minutes before my next class began.  

*Title, Belle and Sebastian

Among Us

"Hi Mrs. Caballero!  This is, um, Hilary Wagner, from Westward Elementary.  Um....I'm calling because, well, Veronica is locked in the garage...."

"Cóm...WHAT?"

"Um yeah, we were talking after school on Google MEET and she went in the garage to see the dogs and um, well, I'm really sorry, she locked herself in....I told her to tell me Adriana's number, she's upstairs, but Veronica ..."

"I KNOW I KNOW, no lo sé, right?"
"YES!  She doesn't know Adriana's number and told me to call her mom so...."

Thankfully, Mrs. Caballero burst out laughing.

"It's all good!" she exclaimed, snickering.

"I'm really sorry."  I responded and hung up.

I looked back at the screen.

"Veronica, your mom is calling Adriana.  Prem!"  I yelled into the screen,

"Put down that gasoline!  The hammer too!  If I have to call your parents and say that the house is on fire, Ms. Wagner is not going to have a job on Monday!"

Prem laughed and put the can of gasoline down and the hammer back in a bin and came back to the computer with his cat.  

"Prem, oh my god!  Turn around!  Ku has the hammer!"  I screamed, watching Prem's five year old brother dig in the bin and run away behind Prem's back, carrying a large tool.  

I heard the garage door open and watched Veronica run back inside her house.

I sat at my kitchen table, listening to the second meanest teacher at the school teach a class while I watched Lola run around the back yard.  The neighbor's landscapers started blowing and mowing their yard, drowning out the mean teacher's voice.  

"Okay!" she yelled.

"You have fifteen minutes to complete this!"

Holy shit, independent work time!  I sprang into action, dropping a MEET link in her chat and directing my students to join my call so that I could actually help them with the assignment.  Prem and Veronica piped in immediately.  They really didn't need much help and I sat and watched them work, waiting for questions.  I looked outside and saw Lola trapped on a three and a half foot high retaining wall in our backyard.

"I'm sorry you guys.  I'll be back.  Lola is trapped."  I said and quickly ran outside.  I had to pick up all eighty-five pounds of her, while she tranquilly waited to be lowered to the ground.

"Okay, I'm back."  I announced.

"Are you on the beginning, middle or end of your narrative?"

"Ms. Wagner, can I tell you something?"  Angel asked sleepily while we waited for his test to load.  We had been at it for hours.

"Sure."

"Okay but, DON'T CRY."

"Okay...." I answered, a little worried.

"My dog, you know Hazel?  We were outside and well....she killed a little mouse."

"It's okay, Angel.  It's just what dogs do.  They aren't trying to be mean."

Angel's mom walked in and asked me why the testing was taking so long.  I explained to her in Spanish that the test was stupid and that I was really sorry, that it was just something they were making us do and I wouldn't make Angel sit through it much longer.  

"You know a lot of words in Spanish." Angel mentioned as his mom left his room.

"Yeah, I like Spanish a lot, but when I get nervous I make mistakes.  I don't want your mom to think that I don't speak well."

"I make mistakes when I'm nervous, too."  Angel responded.

"It's okay."  he added with a smile.