What do you do when you call on a kid and ask, “What did that last passage mean?” and the kid stands there without any idea of what the passage meant, and you know he’s not alone, you know every other kid in the class hasn’t the faintest idea either? What the hell do you do? Do you go home and browse through the philosophy of education books the G.I. bill generously provided? Do you scratch your ugly head and seek enlightenment from the educational psychology texts? Do you consult Dewey?
And who the hell do you condemn, just who?
Do you condemn the elementary schools for sending a kid on to high school without knowing how to read, without knowing how to write his own name on a piece of paper? Do you condemn the masterminds who plot the educational systems of a nation, or a state, or a city?
Do you condemn the kids for not having been blessed with I.Q.’s of 120? Can you condemn the kids? Can you condemn anyone? Can you condemn the colleges that give you all you need to pass a board of education examination? Do you condemn the board of education for not making the exams stiffer, for not boosting the requirements, for not raising salaries, for not trying to attract better teachers, for not making sure their teachers are better equipped to teach?
Or do you condemn the meatheads all over the world who drift into the teaching profession, drift into it because it offers a certain amount of paycheck-every-month security, vacation-every-summer luxury, or a certain amount of power, or a certain easy road when the other more difficult roads are so full of ruts?
Oh, he’d seen the meatheads, all right, he’d seen them in every education class he’d ever attended. The simpering female idiots who smiled and agreed with the instructor, who imparted vast knowledge gleaned from profound observations made while sitting at the back of the classroom in some ideal high school in some ideal neighborhood while an ideal teacher taught ideal students.
Or the men, who were perhaps the worst, the men who sometimes seemed a little embarrassed over having chosen the easy road, the road to security, the men who sometimes made a joke about the women, not realizing they themselves were poured from the same steaming cauldron of horse manure. Had Rick been one of these men? He did not believe so.
He had wanted to teach, had honestly wanted to teach. He had not considered the security, or the two-month vacation, or the short hours. He had simply wanted to teach, and he had considered teaching a worth-while profession. He had, in fact, considered it the worthiest profession. He had held no illusions about his own capabilities. He could not paint, or write, or compose, or sculpt, or philosophize deeply, or design tall buildings. He could contribute nothing to the world creatively, and this had been a disappointment to him until he’d realized he could be a big creator by teaching. For here were minds to be sculptured, here were ideas to be painted, here were lives to shape. To spend his allotted time on earth as a bank teller or an insurance salesman would have seemed an utter waste to Rick. Women, he had reflected, had no such problem. Creation had been given to them as a gift, and a woman was self-sufficient within her own creative shell. A man needed more, which perhaps was one reason why a woman could never understand a man’s concern for the job he had to do. So Rick had seized upon teaching, had seized upon it fervently, feeling that if he could take the clay of undeveloped minds, if he could feel this clay in his hands, could shape this clay into thinking, reacting, responsible citizens, he would be creating. He had given it all his enthusiasm, and he had sometimes felt deeply ashamed of his classmates, often visualizing them in teaching positions, and the thought had made his flesh crawl.
These will teach my children, he had mused. These.
And these had sent kids to his classes without knowing how to read. These had taught a total of nothing, but who was to be condemned?
Who, who was to be condemned?
He had a tool now, one tool. A magnificently powerful, overwhelmingly miraculous tool, a tool no one in all his years of preparation had ever thought to tell him about. And worse, his preparation had not even instilled in him the curiosity or common sense to ask about this fantastic tool.
He now knew the average I.Q. of his students.
He spent the next week observing his classes. He taught, or tried to teach, while he was observing, but he was really stalling for time, trying to learn in one week all the things he’d never been taught. On this Monday of October 19th, he did not know if he was any closer to reaching the kids. But he had some ideas now, just a few ideas, and he sat at his desk and waited for 55-206 to put in its appearance, waited and watched the snow nuzzling the windowpanes.
He sensed that the beginning of the teaching process had to come from the kids themselves. He knew, in fact, that there could be no beginning in this school unless the kids desired it. Standing up there in front of the room and throwing facts at them was a waste of time, until they realized that there could be no teaching and no learning unless there was a give and take. And rather than spend all his time giving, and hoping they would be taking, he’d decided to let them do a little giving, let them do all the giving in fact, until this sense of mutual exchange became a habit.
The boys were beginning to trickle into the room now, one at a time, breezing by his desk and looking at the leather box there. Rick looked at the box and smiled. The box was part of his plan, and he was anxious to see how 55-206 reacted to that plan. He had reached the conclusion that 55-206 was the worst of his classes, a deduction he’d cleverly made after learning about Juan Garza from Solly Klein. He knew that if he licked 55-206, he had them all licked, and so he’d chosen this class as the first for his experiment. He would not let them know there was anything extraordinary about today’s lesson, of course. He would handle the class the way he always did, letting them believe nothing had changed. He spotted Miller in the doorway, and then the colored boy entered the room smiling.
He walked directly to Rick’s desk, indicated the leather box with a slight movement of his head, and asked, “You bring your cosmetics t’school, Chief?”
“Take your seat, Miller,” Rick said.
Miller opened his eyes wide in innocence. “Don’t be touchy, Chief,” he said, smiling. “I know lotsa guys use makeup.”
“Sit down,” Rick said patiently. “Come on, Miller.”
“Why, sure, Chief,” Miller said, delighted. “Why, sure.”
He slouched up the aisle and collapsed into his seat, and Rick looked at the leather box and thought He knows damn well what it is. He never saw a cosmetics case that big.
The boys drifted into the room, walking to the windows and looking out at the snow, lingering there a while and finally taking their seats before the bell sounded. West, his blond hair plastered against his forehead, rushed into the room just as Rick was closing the door. He grinned, said “Thank you” as though Rick were a doorman, and then went to his seat beside Miller.
Rick closed the door, walked back to his desk, took the attendance rapidly, and then rapped on his desk for silence. The boys went right on chatting, ignoring him completely.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s knock it off.”
The kids modulated into silence, and Rick said, “Let’s keep it quiet for now, anyway. You’ll have plenty opportunity to talk later during today’s class.”
“We goan make speeches, teach?” Miller called out.
“No,” Rick said, “we’re just going to talk.”
The other kids were already considering what Miller had said. So that’s what was on deck for today. A goddamn speech period. Give a three-minute speech on How I Spent My Summer Vacation. This was going to be real jazzy.