The Department Chairman arrived at Room 206 just before the fifth period began. He entered the room smiling, walked to Rick’s desk and said, “Hope you don’t mind a little observation, Dadier?”
“Why... why not at all,” Rick answered, wishing at the same time that Stanley had not chosen this particular class to observe. But then, Stanley undoubtedly knew all about Juan Garza, knew that 55-206 was a class full of his disciples, and had purposely chosen it.
“I’ll just sit at the back of the room,” he said, his lips moving below his now-full mustache. He was dressed impeccably, as always. His not-quite-blond hair was brushed neatly, and his gray eyes had been ordered to attention by a strict drillmaster. There was no doubt that he was the chairman of the English Department. “I’ll be very quiet,” he added, smiling, assuming the role of a mildly interested observer, giving the lie to his regal bearing and his cold eyes. He walked familiarly to the back of the room, took the last seat in the first row, crossed his legs after lifting the trouser to preserve its crease, and then opened a black notebook on the desk before him.
The class filed in, spotting Stanley instantly, and behaving like choir boys before the Christmas Mass. There’d be no trouble today. Rick knew. It was one thing to badger a teacher, but not when it led to a knockdown-dragout with the Department Chairman. No one liked sitting in the English office under the cold stare of that Stan man.
The cold stare showed no signs of heating up during the lesson. Rick gave it all he had, glad he’d prepared a good plan the night before, able for the first time to actually follow the plan because the kids kept their peace in Stanley’s presence. He called primarily on his best students, throwing in a few of the duller kids to show Stanley he was impartial, but he steered away from Miller and West, not wanting to risk any entanglements while Stanley was observing.
At the end of the period, Stanley came to the desk and smiled briefly. “You might watch the distribution of your questions,” he said, a bored expression in his eyes. “You seem to favor several students.”
“Oh, do I?” Rick asked innocently, cursing Stanley for having seen through his scheme. “I’ll watch that.”
“Yes, do.” He paused and consulted his notes. “Ever call on Morales?”
“Yes,” Rick said, a little flustered now. “Yes, I do.”
“Nice boy.”
“Yes.”
“Ever call on Rodriguez?”
“Why, certainly. Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Like him?”
Rick shrugged and smiled. “He’s all right. Not too bright, but not a bad kid.”
“Uh-huh. What about Miller? Notice you didn’t call on him once.”
“Didn’t I? No, I guess I didn’t. Oh, he’s quite active in the class usually.” Rick smiled a fraternal smile. “Oh yes, quite active,” hoping Stanley would understand what he meant. Stan-lay did not return the smile.
“I’ll have a report typed up for your guidance, Dadier. I may drop in again sometime.”
“Please do,” Rick answered politely.
Stanley did not drop in the next day because the next day was Armistice Day and there were no teachers or students present at the high school. But he did drop in on November 12th, this time during Rick’s eighth-period class. He took his seat at the back of the room, observed Rick while he taught, made several notes, and then left when the bell rang, not stopping to chat with Rick this time.
Nor was that the last visit. Stanley began stopping by frequently, sometimes remaining for the full period, and sometimes visiting for ten or fifteen minute stretches, and then departing silently.
In the beginning, Rick resented the intrusions. He would watch Stanley scribbling at the back of the room, and he wondered what Stanley was writing, and he felt something like a bug on the microscope slide of a noted entomologist. Why all the secrecy? What the hell was this, the Gestapo?
He began to realize, after a while, that Stanley’s visits were probably just what he needed, and he found himself looking forward to the unannounced appearances of the Department Chairman. With painful honesty, he admitted to himself that his students were not entirely to blame for the lack of teaching that went on in his classes. He was not prepared to cope with them, and unless someone told him what he was doing wrong, he’d probably never be prepared to cope with them. Perhaps Stanley’s visits were the answer to his problem. Perhaps Stanley would eventually make known the results of his observations, would say, “See here, Dadier, this and this is your trouble. Such and such is fine, but you’ve got to concentrate more on that and that.”
Rick would have appreciated that immensely, and so he was quite pleased with the sudden attention Stanley devoted to him. For the first time in his educational career, he honestly felt that someone was interested in what he did, and in whether or not he was doing it correctly. So where he had made lesson plans carefully before, he now devoted more time to them, enlarged on them, outlined his lessons in the minutest detail. And when Stanley asked to see his plan during one of his visits. Rick felt amply rewarded, even though Stanley made no comment on the outline.
He was grateful, too, for the obedience of his classes whenever Stanley was present. One of his greatest problems had been discipline. With these kids, it was almost impossible to get a word in edgewise and — especially in the beginning — his teaching efforts usually disintegrated into a contest to determine who could shout the loudest. He had never fully licked the discipline problem, and he doubted if he ever would. He had succeeded, though, in forcing some sort of obedience out of the kids, usually by threats of homework or tests or after-school confinement, or visits from parents. There were times when no threat would work, times when the kids were just feeling bastardly and presented a solid, unyielding front that could not be cracked no matter how much he ranted or raved. These times were not infrequent. They were a part of vocational school teaching, a part acknowledged by any teacher who’d ever served in the system.
There were formulas for establishing discipline. Rick learned, and one of these formulas had been succinctly stated by Captain Schaefer during one of his periodic visits to the lunchroom.
“Clobber the bastards,” he’d said. “It’s the only thing that works. What do you think happens at home when they open their yaps? Pow, right on the noggin. That’s the only language they understand.”
Perhaps they understood that language in Captain Schaefer’s domain, a domain devoted to the physical, a domain of sweating, athletic bodies, a man’s world of physical strength. Perhaps they accepted a cuff on the mouth from a man in a tee shirt, a man who was sweating just as they were, a man who was king of this writhing land of bodies unadorned. Perhaps so.
But Rick could not picture Josh Edwards clobbering a kid. Nor could he, in all honesty, picture himself doing that. The urge to do so was always present, of course. You can push someone just so far, and when he finds he can’t strike back verbally his first instinct is to inflict some sort of damage, and his only remaining weapons are physical. Especially when these kids did not seem to be kids. The second-termers, yes. They were kids. He could look upon them as kids, and he could feel the superiority of adulthood. There was a difference between his body and their bodies, and a difference between the basic mechanism of his mind and their minds.
Not so with the fifth-termers and certainly not so with the seventh-termers. Perhaps they weren’t old enough to vote, and perhaps some of them weren’t old enough to be drafted. But their bodies were mature, strong bodies, and they thought — in their own twisted manner — the way adults think, and it was extremely difficult to consider them “kids” when a good many of them outreached you, and outweighed you, and sometimes (only sometimes) outthought you.