Last January I walked back into a classroom after an 18-year absence. I had gotten a job for half a year to replace a teacher on maternity leave. I was nervous. Could I teach these 6th grade kids, or, as I hoped, reach any of them?
My friends thought I was crazy. They told me junior high school kids are enough of a problem at home. Who would want to be with them in school all day? I did.
The first few days of school were a blur of forms, books and learning names. A week passed before I noticed Mike. When he entered the classroom, he pulled his desk into a corner, as far away from the other children as he could. Mike sat in an oasis of his own making. I watched him during class. Although he was a good-looking boy, he stretched his face as if it were rubber. He twisted it and pulled it into grotesque shapes.
I watched Mike for the next few weeks. He was in class, but not in class. I wondered where he wanted to be.
I got to know Mike slowly, through his journal assignments. I had the students write in their journals every day. I asked them questions so they would have something to write about. I asked Mike what his most memorable experience was. He wrote back to me: One of his happiest days had been at his last school when he entered and won a math contest. Mike added that he had liked his old school, and hated this one.
During study hall that day, I moved Mike’s desk next to mine. He seemed surprised, and even more so when I told him I wouldn’t let him fail.
“I know you can write,” I said. “Sometimes it’s hard to put your thoughts on paper. So just tell me about your happiest day, and I’ll show you how to organize it into an essay.”
Mike talked. I wrote.
The first assignments were more mine than his. But after the third essay, Mike wrote for himself. He was a wonderful writer with a strong imagination and a clear sense of words.
Soon Mike was dropping by my classroom before lunch. He would walk in and mumble “Hi.” Then he might do something silly or bizarre. One day he turned on the overhead projector and stared at it for a few minutes. He flicked off the switch and began slapping at the air in front of him.
“What is Mike doing?” A.J., another student who had dropped by, asked me.
I knew what Mike was doing. I had done the same thing when I was a child. I said, “Sometimes after you look into a bright light, you see little specks floating in your field of vision. Everyone sees them from time to time.”
Mike looked at me and grinned. So did A.J. The next day A.J. and Mike came together to visit.
It became a nice ritual. Every day the two stopped by my room to say “Hi.” They let me do most of the talking as we walked to the lunchroom.
One day Mike and A.J. didn’t come in to see me. It was about the same time that I noticed Mike had stopped twisting his face into tortuous masks.
As the school year came to a close, I asked the students to write in their journals one last time-to tell me what they liked best and least about the year.
Mike’s journal entry was my favorite. He said he liked the writing unit best because not only had he learned that he was a good writer but also during the unit he had made his first friend. I was pleased because I knew that was about the time Mike had met A.J.
On the last day at school, after cleaning out my desk, I sat down and read the school yearbook the kids had signed for me. On the front page, in big scrawling letters, Mike had written me a note: “Dear Mrs. Miller: Thank you for teaching me how to write. Thank you for being my first friend at school.”
This is why I have returned to teaching after 18 years-to teach and reach these children.
