Rising Sun

In the fall I biked it to school, but when the mornings hit below freezing, I had to take the bus. I need something to read on the bus--it was too dark and depressing. I picked up an unread book from my wife’s college days called Surviving Auschwitz. The author was an Auschwitz survivor, and he described how distinctly new prisoners entered the camp--he could tell which ones wouldn’t make it. If they had too much hope of getting out, the hope would crash and destroy the prisoner in the process. If they didn’t have any hope, then they were a few days from death. It was the small glimmer of hope that kept him going each day.  

Every morning on the bus I read that book, and every morning I walked from the bus stop to the school, praying: “Lord, lift me up with your love.” A big reason I decided to try this whole experiment was my belief in God. You know when the devil tells Jesus he should jump off the cliff and let the angels catch him. Well, Jesus didn't jump, and I did.

I was just a 2nd grade teacher; if the author could survive Auschwitz, then I had to survive a bunch a seven year olds. Whenever I faced adversity in my life, I just outworked it. I was going to outwork them. The book mentioned how the man’s hope grew when he finally could see the sun rise through the clouds because it meant that the lifeless, grey winter was coming to an end. In Candler Park, the days started to grow longer, and in the bus, I started to see that sun rise.

I had put some faith in a line graph given to first year teachers. It charted the typical ups and downs, and just like the line graph showed, things started to improve after winter break. Everyone told me the kids would be out of control after the break, but my kids had calmed down. I wasn’t doing anything differently, so I reasoned that my consistency was finally paying off. I had been doing the “handbook” discipline for 4 months and now it must be sinking in.

 Then the compliments came, “Wow, Mr. Slaugher, your class is really coming along!” At a staff meeting, Franklin asked that teachers offer up compliments to keep the morale up: of the seven compliments given, I was mentioned in four of them. It wasn’t long before I was on top of the world again, persevering through the harshest of conditions. Mr. Franklin walked in the door, saw all the kids quietly writing and announced that my class was his favorite because they had come so far. His compliments only fed the flame.

Our school was receiving a lot of attention because we were a “turn-around” school with a new and unconventional principal, and there was a writer for NPR writing a story about us. He was interviewing a few of the more successful teachers about the ups and downs of the school, and he also came to me; “Mr. Franklin said I should check out your class sometime.” It was just like I had imagined, only sooner.

Day 1

Out on the blacktop, I shook hands with my new students, and it was no surprise they were all black; there were two latinos in the school, and zero whites. There something very odd about how black the students were and how white the teachers were. An uncle walked up to me and gave me three different phone numbers while trying to conceal a concerned look. “I’m Jerome’s uncle. He gets into a lot of trouble. Call me if he starts acting up. Here's my mom's number and her cell if I don't pick up. She lives real close, so she can just come and get him.”
"I'm sure that won't be necessary."
"Just call if you need to."
A woman with an oversized t-shirt and tight jeans turned to me, “I’m Sean’s mother. He is ADHD. I don’t have his medication yet.”
I smiled. They’ll be just fine; I’ll take care of your little babies, I thought. I didn’t know at the time they were less concerned about their kids, and more concerned about me. Too many teachers had come and gone, and now they had a young white guy in a suit with a handbook and a bright smile with little chance of staying past October. Colin was my smallest student and the Special Ed teacher was holding his hand. “He’s a little shy around new teachers; he’ll warm up to you.” Ahhh, I thought, poor little guy, I’ll make sure he has a great day.

When the students came in and took their seats, they were all looking at me intently, in complete silence. They were just staring, extremely carefully just like my old dog, Stoney, froze when he saw a turtle for the first time. Stoney didn’t know what to do - “What is this strange animal? Is it friendly or mean? Will it mind if I pounce on it? Let's find out.” He ended up jumping on it until I had to pull him away fearing he might just have killed it given the chance. My little friend Colin was the first to budge, and he started whispering to a neighbor, “Please be quiet,” I said in my best teacher voice, but it sounded more like a flight attendant. They both looked up and stopped,and I continued with my description of the nametags but then they started talking again. They must not have understood me, I thought. “Voices should be turned off,” I said; maybe a different phrasing would do the trick, fingers crossed. But they kept on talking without even a pause. Then it occurred to me, Oh! They must be bored with what I’m doing, let's hand out the crayons, and then they will be engaged. Engaged was the buzzword of my grad school; it was explained over and over again that almost all behavior issues could be solved by creating an engaging lesson. Their behavior didn't depend on me as a teacher, but it depended upon the lesson that I had written up the night before. It wasn't like they saw me as a young, white, 1st year teacher who happened to be smiling more than their previous teachers. It was more like they were eagerly awaiting my engaging nametag activity. At least, that was what grad school had taught me.