Educating Esmé (14 page)

Today I went into the lunchroom early to pick them up, to see if I could find out why Ozzie gets sick. Sure enough, his lunch tray was piled up with hamburgers, in a horrible mound, and he was eating them.
All
of them!

“Jesus Christ, Ozzie. You can't eat like this. That's why you're getting sick, don't you see?” I took the tray away and found the lunch monitor, another first-year teacher. “Does he eat like this every day?”

“The kids give him whatever they don't want, and he eats it,” she shrugged.

“And you let him?” I felt my voice rising. “Look, you can't let him. He's overweight for one thing, and for another, it makes him puke. There's eleven fucking burgers here. It makes
me
want to puke. Two of anything. That's the limit. Okay?”

Useless idiot! Stands there watching a kid eat himself sick.

I explained to Ozzie that two is the limit, and I explained to the rest of the class that they've got to help. He looked nervous. I took him aside and told him it would be all right, that he didn't have to worry about being hungry like he was last year when he was homeless.

I can't believe it. Yesterday, he called me into his office about “Madame” again. AGAIN! WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Two questions:

1) Why does he care?

2) Why do I care?

Doesn't Shakespeare say, “That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet”? Yes, it's true. But someone who goes around calling a rose another name—a daisy, an elephant, a peanut butter sandwich—is either a poet or an idiot, and Mr. Turner is no poet. I've had the poor fortune of learning my own name, knowing it deep inside, and it isn't Miss, Mrs. or Ms. It's Madame,
Madame
, MADAME! It just is! That's why it's so likely that I argue about it with him. To call me something else seems so absurd, it is as if when he says “You are not madame,” he is really saying the equivalent of “You are a peanut butter sandwich,” which is why I have to snicker when he keeps insisting over and over. He gets madder and madder, like a little boy having a tantrum, demanding that everyone call every animal a “doggie” even when it is not a dog. That's all fine, but it is so hard for me to humor him to the extent that he clamors to be humored.

After our latest battle, I walked outside, and a Jamaican lady came up to me from out of nowhere and told me Jah loves me, Jah has blessed me, that she
could see I was an intelligent girl who could see and valued the uniqueness of each one in the world. It was odd. She embraced me, even though I didn't know her. I thanked her anyway and told her she came at a time when I needed her. Then I felt renewed and calm and felt the desire to stop asking why I am the way I am, why I'm so weird. Those questions are for other people to ask about me.

But then I continued to waste my energy, writing Mr. Turner a hateful note and talking to the union rep. I thought, I really like parts of my job, and I don't want to lose it, but why do I have to pretend that up is down and black is white and Mr. Turner is right in order to keep it?

I've been up in the middle of the night, wondering,
Why do I care? Am I crazy?
A little, maybe.

Then, after school today, Samantha's second-grade brother, Marky, walked into my classroom. The boy walked in so quietly. He said hello to me and then proceeded to the audio center. He listened to a book tape, gently turning pages for twenty minutes. Then he said, “I'll be back tomorrow.” He's a boy with severe behavioral disorders. Usually he runs to hug me in the
morning. One morning he was feeling so much hostility that he ran up to me and punched me in the jaw and burst out crying. I automatically put him into a body lock, like I learned in Classroom Management in college, and lowered him into a seated position until he calmed down. I couldn't believe I was actually doing it, like a reflex. My jaw didn't hurt, but I was surprised at how volatile he was. I wasn't angry. I know it sounds crazy, but I think he socked me because he loves me and felt he could be free to react with me.

But in my classroom, he sat so quietly . . . He looked so happy . . .

Ms. Federman is right. I can't win.

But I can play.

Just call me a peanut butter sandwich in a black-is-white world.

Last day of school. Had the kids write letters to the next class of fifth graders. It was neat to see what the kids remembered most. I like Asha's letter:

The things you will learn are fractions, the preamble, the Bill of Rights, Beethoven, and explorers, enventers, learn about planets like Saturn. You also will learn about solar power. You might read
King Matt, Tikki Tikki Tembo, The Wish Giver, Number the Stars, The Empty Pot, The Hundred Dresses, What's So Funny Ketu, Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, The Sneetches, The Bat-Poet
and
The Big Orange Splot.

The rules are no saying shut up or bad language.

You should be good in Madame Esmé's class cause she can be real mean.

Zykrecia wrote:

In my class our rules are never say shut up to anyone, don't talk back to the teacher but we sometimes do it anyway and no chewing gum but we do that anyway. My advice is to try hard on your work and be real nice and listen and cooperate with your teacher and classmates . . . and just because someone's messing with you you don't have to beat them up unless you want to.

Zowela:

If you guys are worried if she's mean don't be because she is one of the most nicest teacher I ever had. If your nice to her she will be nice to you. I am giving you my word that you will have a wonderful time in fifth grade. The teacher gives you jobs. Every week she changes your job. Let me tell you that my favorites are messenger, postal worker, lunch ticket passer, line captain, jokester. She read us this book that has about 300 pages called
King Matt
, maybe she will read it to you someday. One more thing that I know you will love is the Happy Box. If you answer a question that she thinks is hard you get it. It's filled with toys, stickers, bookmarks. Believe me, you will love this room.

Esther could barely write, she was crying nonstop and saying God bless me.

In the back of the room, Rochelle's mom, a really helpful parent, was working on a surprise for me. It was a gold scarf with all the children's signatures under the inscription:

Mme. Esmé;

You taught us:

math, spelling, to enjoy reading, science, art, music. To enhance our written words, to speak with good diction.

You taught us:

to be kind to our brothers and sisters (mankind), how to hold our heads up high. To not just try but try our best.

You must wonder and ask, “Did I do O.K.?”

The answer is NO!!!—You did Great!

Of course, I cried. There was so much I wanted to say. But the sands of the hourglass fell, and they left me, single file.

You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no rights to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either . . . Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. . . . They who work selfishly for results are miserable.

—
from the Bhagavad Gita

Three years later, I am most surprised by how little has changed. When I hear the teachers at my new school talk about the graduating class, they say, “They've turned into real ladies and gentlemen! They're grown up!” But when I saw mine graduate today, my former fifth graders from the old school, they looked so much the same; perhaps their faces were a little less doughy, more defined. Are they stunted? Am I seeing them the way I will always see them? Am I the keeper of the ghosts of their childhood selves?

Mr. Turner was onstage with a background of rich blue velour drapes, giving motivational “directives” with his clearly enunciating, almost robotic delivery.

Beside me, the discontented murmurings of Ozzie's mother, who couldn't get hold of a camera. All around me, the alarming majority of parents chewing gum like there is no tomorrow. Some mothers sport hairdos as tall and elaborate as ice sculptures. Onstage, some honor students, girls wearing new white high-heeled shoes (unscuffed), stockings (unrun). The back of children's heads, caps and gowns, sitting straight, behaving. Little exhausting efforts to make this day elegant. I myself changed my outfit before coming. No silver shoes. No miniskirt. No shock. A flowered dress, a small nose ring. I am getting old.

Also exhausting: speeches about paying the price, success, follow your dreams, achievements of the past, achievements of the future. What about the present? The speeches begin to sound like pleas. “There's nothing for you on the streets,” a teacher's voice is amplified. The gum-chewing parents applaud. Do they say this at white-kid graduations? Do they dress up like this everywhere when children graduate eighth grade? Look at the floral arrangements some parents have brought. Look at the cops outside—in case. This is a big deal. Someone crossing the stage is celebrating
their only graduation. Should we hold our applause or let it thunder forth?

I
SMENE ONCE TOLD
me, “The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced one is that the beginning teacher asks, ‘How am I doing?' and the experienced teacher asks, ‘How are the children doing?'” Sitting in the audience, I wonder where the other sixteen of my thirty-one fifth graders are today. They aren't crossing the stage to graduate. Did they move? Did they fail? Then I begin to regress. Where am
I
today?

I stayed at Mr. Turner's school for two years. The second year, he gave me a lesser rating because I used up half of my sick days. “If you loved teaching, you wouldn't have gotten pregnant,” he explained.

And yet today, I don't feel my usual hatred toward Mr. Turner. He is far away from me, onstage, impotent. He is cursed: a man with a platform, an audience, and nothing of his own to say.

Besides, I should be happier now. My new principal is a true professional and has more faith in me than I have in myself. She held a school librarian position for
me while I raised my son through his first year. She didn't shame me for wanting to be a mother. “Family first,” she said. “Here we want you to have a life outside of these walls. We'll wait. I know you'll be worth waiting for.”

As if that initial kindness wasn't enough, after a year of thank you notes in my mailbox, she called me into her office and gave me a superior rating. She seemed shocked when I started to cry. She apologized. I opened my mouth to explain, but couldn't decide what to say.

. . . but I didn't break up any fights!

. . . but I didn't take any children home to hide!

. . . but I didn't do an assembly program!

. . . but I didn't bring in an author!

. . . but I didn't raise standardized test scores!

. . . but I didn't fear for my life!

. . . but . . . they don't ask for my love here!

Instead, I just buried my face in my hands and choked. “I tried so hard there. It was never enough. I don't work here like I worked there. I worked my ass off, and he never once . . .”

“You can't really think that you don't do anything here, do you?”

So, my principal now is Glinda to my Dorothy. So why aren't I happy? Is it the teachers here, drunk on worksheets and gossip? Is it the students, clean and coddled, polite excuse-makers? Is it the mothers with their lemonade smiles, employed husbands, and tantrums when their children get C's? I've heard that a posse of them rail on me weekly at the local manicurist. “She works them so hard! That librarian, who does she think she is!” Some come in person, and as they yell and gesture, I can't help but imagine them speaking a subconscious monologue: “How dare you! Don't you know my child is white? Don't you know he has mastery of conventional grammar? Don't you know we can afford college?”

Why am I not happy? I left an abusive job for a dispassionate one.

T
HESE THOUGHTS ARE
dispelled, to my relief, by the lilting voices of two girls onstage now, singing so beautifully that I squint to make sure they aren't lipsynching.
Wearing silver blouses and moving their hands through the air slowly, they are so much like mermaids. I cry for the first and only time during the ceremony, being reminded of what I am missing, yet being hard-pressed to define it.

People snicker, “Those who can't do, teach.” But, oh, how right they are. I could never, ever do all I dream of doing. I could never, ever be an opera star, a baseball umpire, an earth scientist, an astronaut, a great lover, a great liar, a trapeze artist, a dancer, a baker, a buddha, or a thousand other aspirations I have had, while having only been given one thin ticket in this lottery of life! In the recessional, as I watch them,
mine
, the ones I loved, I overflow with the joyous greed of a rich man counting coins. Wrongly I have thought teaching has lessened me at times, but now I experience a teacher's great euphoria, the knowledge like a drug that will keep me: Thirty-one children. Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. It's an almost psychotic feeling, believing that part of their lives belongs to me. Everything they become, I also become. And everything about me, they helped to create.

As I write this, the governor of a certain western state is proclaiming in an address that his state has too many inadequate teachers and students, but fear not, he declares, in
his
administration they will be held accountable. His state boasts the largest number of students and teachers in the U.S. and ranks last in reading scores. It also ranks last in school and public library support, two things he neglects to note in his speech. Perhaps he thinks more threats will be more effective than more books.