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It’s only the sixth day of my new job at O’Fallon Middle School, but it feels like six months. Six months on another planet. Nothing about teaching in a suburban school is the same as teaching here. For instance, I was hired a month ago as a language arts teacher, but on the Friday before school started, Principal Reardon was still trying to fill teaching slots. When he snagged someone else willing to take my position, he reassigned me to a reading class with sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students currently reading at the third-grade level or below. In any other circumstance I might have objected, but here that doesn’t feel like an option.
At O’Fallon reading is considered a special. I thought specials were subjects like art, music, or gym, but O’Fallon offers no music, and the gym teacher is a grouchy old man recovering from open-heart surgery.
Another thing, core teachers are left alone as little as possible with their students. That’s usually no problem since there’s always another teacher in the class who is assigned to the special ed kids, the ELL kids (English Language Learners), or the BIG kids (Behavior Intensive Group).
According to this buddy system, specials teachers share a homeroom with a nearby core teacher, so I’m stationed across from my classroom with Mrs. Duval, a twenty-year veteran who teaches sixth-grade math.
This morning she’s up front as usual marking attendance and checking for missing faces. A new student, Juan Delgado, shows up for the first time today. Mrs. Duval remains at her desk, while I go to the seat Juan has chosen in the back. He’s busy making Chinese paper stars like a Kung Fu warrior.
I lean in, “Where have you been, Juan? School started a week ago.”
He answers fully concentrating on his folded weaponry. “I didn’t have any clean clothes.”
I smile. “Don’t worry about that, Juan.”
“But there’s no laundromat you can walk to from the shelter.”
“What shelter?”
“It’s supposed to be secret,” he whispers.
I whisper back. “Well, why are you there?”
“We’re hiding from my dad.”
“From your dad?”
“He gets out of jail in twenty-two days.”
“Oh,” I say.
He doesn’t look up, still concentrating on his intricate folding.
The P.A. blasts, “All rise for the National Anthem.” The scratchy recording begins, so I stay standing beside Juan.
A few rows up, Benny sits on his desk, his gangly legs hitting the floor. Chino sits beside him, smirking beneath his growing mustache. I tell them in a quiet, but I-mean-it voice to stand up and wonder if they will do what I say.
They lean on their desks.
“Boys, please stand,” echoes Mrs. Duval.
They get up and add their mocking falsettos to the soprano’s, “Rockets’ red glare. Bombs bursting in air.”
Mrs. Duval gives them a cut-it-out look, and they’re silent, but I can see the We didn’t do anything look on their faces.
The soprano presses on with, “Gave proof through the night,” and Juan, hand over his heart, face raised towards the flag, sings along in an angel voice that hasn’t yet changed.
Benny and Chino laugh under their breath.
As the soprano asks, “Does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave?” my eyes sweep the rest of the classroom. There’s Maricela, who just returned from suspension for fighting with Carmen, a tragic celebrity because her mother was accidentally killed in a gang shooting over the summer. There’s Raul, the handsome boy with the long, wavy ponytail who was the cause of their jealous smack down. There’s quiet Luz who puts Winnie the Pooh stickers on all her notebooks, and her best friend Marta with a wiry blonde braid. There are the kids from the high math group: Daniel Garcia, Kevin Bevin, and Andrew McCarthy. There’s Marco, the kid who sits way up front because he’s legally blind, plus fifteen other students with no claim to fame so far.
After the crescendo, “In the land of the free and the home of the brave,” the song abruptly cuts off.
Principal Reardon commences the morning announcements. “It’s come to my attention that’s there’s too much running on the playground.”
Since the playground is synonymous with the parking lot, teachers are supposed to park around the edges. Kids are supposed to steer clear of the cars.
“And if I have to say this again,” Reardon continues, “there will be consequences.”
The grand finale is always Vice Principal O’Malley leading the Pledge of Allegiance. As she finishes, “With liberty and justice for all,” Juan looks up at me from his Kung Fu stars. With my hand still over my heart, I feel like the blind-folded lady holding the scales of justice. Once I heard a comedian define justice as, just us. Today it isn’t funny.
The bell rings, and Benny in his Yankees T-shirt, and Chino in his Red Sox jersey, shout, “Play ball,” and burst out the door.
As a fellow newbie, I guide Juan to Miss Glotzka’s class next door and try to quickly explain his complicated middle school schedule. Right now, that’s the only thing I’m sure of on this strange new planet where children have to be braver than I am.
