Consider Yourself Educated, continued

by Larry Mayer

Grade them on? I'm happy if these guys show up for class three times a week. Grade them on? It's hard enough deciding how to prepare them for the real world. Grades? I feel overwhelmed by a system that expects me to teach 12 years of "language arts" in 10 months -- the students' fractional attendance notwithstanding. So I try to be innovative. The subject, after all, is broad, and anything that relates to the logical and coherent expression of ideas in the English language is okay by me. I start the year talking with them about the evolution of language. We read about slang and vernacular, about "street English" and "cash English," about black dialects and American history. We read Frederick Douglass and August Wilson. We listen to the blues and gospel and hip-hop. I try to get them to make connections. They yawn. They want worksheets. They put their heads down. Tyree, the seemingly comatose but very polite African-American young man who has been silent for two months, finally raises his hand.

"Yes, Tyree."

"Larry, how much longer we gonna do this crap?"

"Do what? English?"

"No, this bullshit. I need to learn real English for college."

"But this is real English. This is the history of English."

"Nah, man, you know what I mean. Do somebody at the central office threaten to fire you if you don't do Black History Month?"

"But Tyree, Black History Month is in February."

"That's what I'm sayin'. You guys think you got to teach Black History Month every month of the year."

Maybe he's right. What am I educating him for, anyway? And on what will I base his grade? All this educational jargon about "life skills" and "relevance to the world of work" might make sense. Why try for more? Most class discussions, when successful, turn into a kind of Welcome Back, Kotter meets Oprah anyway. As one veteran teacher points out to me later that day, "Yes, these students have bought in to the idea of a high-school diploma; unfortunately they have not bought in to the idea of learning."

So grading becomes a little bit of everything. Sometimes I grade strictly on the number of words, sometimes on effort, sometimes on creativity. Did the student follow instructions? Did she try her hardest? Do her phrases remotely resemble sentences? Does the student need more encouragement, or merely a swift kick to re-emphasize reality? For the most part, the students are lumped into classes regardless of age or ability. There has been some attempt to group them by reading level, but my hunch is that those test results are inaccurate. The smartest kids will often put forth the least effort. Each student carries so much baggage -- stuffed with a disarming array of survival tricks -- that there is very little room anywhere for academic competence or enthusiasm to develop. At 19, Jason has enough ability to demonstrate a shadow logic similar to the way he speaks. Any effort to push him to a higher level, "into the light," is met with resistance.

"Hey, just give me a fuckin' D, all right? I just wanna pass." Jason's essay, to my delight, exhibits a modicum of civility: "If they don't use the death penalty in some states, so why would they want to take the life of an innocent baby?" I am further impressed that he has chosen to write on abortion rather than the death penalty. The paper quickly fades into a series of incoherent wisecracks and clichés, but miraculously Jason has earned a C on the exam and a C overall.

Wednesday is also flood day. The entire fifth floor, which houses 60 students, five teachers, and four support staff members, is a shambles. The weekend rains have taken their toll. My classroom is under an inch of water. The ceiling panels look like milk-sopped graham crackers that have been soaked in a long-forgotten glass, and several of the books, which I purchased myself on my scanty teacher's salary, are ruined.

I make less money today than I did when I first started in New York almost 10 years ago, but books and supplies are my priority, so I buy. Back in November, when I was still optimistic, I fancied myself a sort of book pusher -- buying used and discounted books from all around Cambridge, and then surreptitiously dishing them off to various students on the DL (down-low). I stare at the craggy brown stain in the ceiling, the water dripping onto the soggy pile of books. Is this God's wrath? I wonder.

On Thursday, our last students sign out. About 20 students in all have made it to the finish line. The workmen begin cutting up the gray carpet in my room. The damp stench is insufferable, more conducive to farming baby mushrooms than fertile young minds. All year the kids have complained. On good days my windowless classroom smells like "ass," and on the really bad ones, "open ass." Apparently, all the stink molecules that settled into the rug over the past nine months are slowly beginning to reanimate. Today we evacuate because of an electrical fire in the building. By tomorrow, all Alternative School seniors will be scattered across Boston, back at their home schools, gracing the stage of one commencement ceremony or another.

Although ambivalent about returning, I have maintained the naïve hope that next year might provide a nicer classroom and some books. For God's sake, at least a new carpet. It doesn't turn out that way: a week later, on June 16, I am laid off. Our fearless director has been working his funding sources all year, but apparently it won't be enough. Funds for the Alternative School are cut by $95,000, and four full-time people -- half the staff -- will have to go.

So I start to disassemble my room. Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers come down from the wall. Malcolm X and Dr. King shaking hands are next. John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Muhammad Ali; one of the DNA guys, either Watson or Crick; the Dalai Lama; and in quick succession, all those other people who "Think Different." Finally my books: 50, 60, 70. Some more boxes, please. Now the room is empty.

Kathy Cooper, a heavyset girl who's been passed around the foster-home circuit for years, wanders in to say goodbye. Her life has been one long struggle, and she confesses to gaining weight deliberately to keep people at bay. All year she has played a kind of cat-and-mouse game with me, not sure whether my kindness can be trusted. Nonetheless, her naturally buoyant disposition and insatiable addiction to reading have made her one of my favorites.

"You've made it, Kathy! What are you going to do now?"

"Well, my boyfriend just got locked up, I just quit my job at CVS, and that tumor on my thigh needs to be operated on, so I don't know. Remember Rudy, my ex-boyfriend who got shot a few weeks ago? Well, he moved somewhere out of state." She laughs, partly out of girlish embarrassment at why in the hell a grown man is so interested in her life, and partly to say, yes, my life is more complicated than you can imagine.

"And next year?" I ask.

"You mean September? I'm thinking about beauty school."

"Beauty school? But Kathy, what about college? What about all those books you've read?"

"Yeah, maybe college, and then maybe open my own business." She laughs again.

"Well, look, Kathy Cooper, you can't leave me like this, without taking another book. You'll need something to read in July and
August."

"I've read all your books already," she replies, "and the last couple you gave me really sucked."

"Well, how about if I look for some more at home, and give you a call over the summer?"

"The summer? You gonna call me? You gonna come over and blaze some blunts with us? You crazy, mister? Sure, I'll take the books."

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Larry Mayer is a writer and teacher living in Cambridge. His first book, Who Will Say Kaddish? A Search for Jewish Identity in Contemporary Poland (Syracuse University), is scheduled for publication in spring 2001. He can be reached at LMayer27@hotmail.com.