The Critical Edition

At 11:45, we’re in fourth period. A young man, who is often, quite honestly, extremely disruptive, sits silently at the back of a bunch of desks crowded in front of the television. The invocation begins and the young man bows his head. He is soon wiping tears from his eyes. Other students look at him, smiles on their faces, but they say nothing. As the pastor begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the young man joins in. He says his “amen,” smiles at those around him, puts his head down on his hands, watches, and waits.

Fourth period watches

As Obama begins to take the oath, the African American boys — and they are a majority in that class — sit rapted in attention. I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say that I see a certain spark of hope and self-confidence in their face as they watch someone who could look like an uncle or older cousin become the most powerful man on the planet.

While the speech, in their view, drags on (in my view: one of the most nuaunced speeches about our nation I’ve ever heard), the old habits return: the silliness, the talking, the 13-year-old-ness. In short, all the behaviors that make several of them “at risk” students, students who are “underachievers.”

Still, for that moment, it seemed they saw in themselves what I see: potential.

Today was a great day to be a teacher.

Middle School Artillery

A teacher workday can disappear faster than a sugar cube in hot water. I had all these plans for today: finalizing grades; re-organizing my room; extensive planning for the related arts class I’ll be teaching this third quarter; listening to Bach’s Mass in D Minor in its entirety. Only one thing got completed, and that was only because I had no other choice in the matter: grades for the first semester are now complete.

Much of this week was geared toward today’s end. It was, in other words, a week of assessment. And as much as I feel an odd sense of accomplishment watching kids take a test—perhaps it’s a perverse sense of accomplishment—I hate what I know is coming: grading. And that dreaded grading leads me to take the easy way out: Scantrons.

I can vaguely justify it with the understanding that all standardized testing requires filling in endless dots. “Kids have got to get used to it,” I hear, and I think, “If they haven’t by now, thanks to NCLB, they never will.”

I walked down the hall with a stack of Scantron sheets, and teachers I passed inevitably made firearm jokes. “Hope it doesn’t sound like a machine gun,” one said. The history teacher put it in perspective: “Storming the beaches of Normandy?”

It is an odd experience, though, listening to one’s test results. Whir whir whir grrr grr grr grr whir whir grr whir grr grr whir whir grr grr grr whir whir whir grr whir grr whir grr grr whir grr grr grr whir grr grr grr grr grr grr grr grr grr grr. “He did badly,” one thinks, hoping for better results with the next Scantron sheet

Jan Svab as Capulet

More than four hundred years separate us from Shakespeare’s time — four centuries’ worth of linguistic change. I was curious what might happen in the course of 24 eighth-graders’ first true encounter with Shakespeare.

We began Romeo and Juliet today, and students acted out the opening quarrel scene. After class, one student came up to me.

“You know how pirates say ‘argh’ and such?” he began, hesitantly.

“Yes,” I replied, wondering where this was leading.

“Well, when Lord Capulet was trying to get Lady Capulet to hand him the sword, was he just, like, saying something pirate-like, or was he degrading her?”

“No,” I answered, smiling. “No, he wasn’t degrading her. He was just being enthusiastic.”

The line in question, of course, is, “What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!”