Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder
The spelling bee had come down to Miguel and Judith, and now Miguel had won. Judith laughed. The children lounged on the carpeted floor. Chris was sitting at her desk, watching them. She was thinking how small and cute they all suddenly looked. This always seemed to happen. In September her new students would walk in and right away become people whom she had to try to motivate and mold. Now that she was about to lose responsibility for them, they turned back into children, and she started missing them. In the midst of this reverie, sudden, untoward motion on the perimeter, that §ense of something out of place, made Chris turn her head, and there in the opened doorway to the playground stood the familiar figure of Clarence. Brown-skinned and wiry with huge eyes. The knees of his jeans had holes in them. He wore a dirty white T-shirt. He stood there, dismounted, holding on to the handlebars of a ten-speed bike, and gazed in at the children with his mouth slightly ajar.
"Hi, Clarence!" said Chris. "How are you?"
He looked at her and smiled. Those dimples! And he looked so small! In her mind, he had grown much larger. Could this have been the most difficult student of her career? He was only four and a half feet tall.
"Come on in!" she said to him.
Clarence, she noticed, still stuttered sometimes at the starts of sentences. "Nuh nuh no I can't. Gotta go someplace." But he lingered in the doorway, and his mouth came ajar again as he gazed at his old classmates. They were all looking back at Clarence now.
"Oh," she thought. "I feel bad for him."
"Don't you want to come in and talk to any of them?" asked Chris. It would be sweet and fitting for him to pass the last of this afternoon with them, as if perhaps he'd never been sent away.
"Did you pass?" said Robert.
"I don't know," said Clarence.
Chris sat in her chair, turned toward him. She smiled at him. Probably he wanted to join them, but was feeling shy. Maybe she could coax him. "Don't you want to come on in?" said Chris again.
"No," said Clarence. "Not today." He smiled at her, and again he went back to gazing at the children while Chris gazed at him.
"Oh, well," said Chris offhandedly. But she had to try once more. "Sure you don't want to come in?"
"No. Bye," he said.
He turned away and sped off on his bike, so quickly she hardly saw him go. It was like the time, months ago, when Clarence was supposed to stay after school, and she turned her back for only a few seconds and turned around again to find that he had vanished. The doorway was empty. She turned back to face the room.
On the last day, Chris handed out the report cards. It was a solemn moment, mostly because the report cards named each child's teacher for next year. The children studied their cards silently. Several would have Mrs. Zajac again. They were smiling. Most didn't have her, and they looked pensive. Now they'd have to wonder what next year's teacher would be like. Alice, who had left a few days ago on a vacation with her parents, had Chris. Her parents had requested it. So had Margaret's. Chris had Courtney again—by lottery, as it were, and not by parental request—and she had Felipe, whose father had also requested her. This was notable, the first instance in Al's experience of a Puerto Rican parent asking for a particular teacher. But Arabella's mother hadn't known that one could do that. When Chris ran into her later, that handsome woman said to Chris, "She doesn't have you next year? Oh, she was hoping she would!" Chris was sorry, too. She'd have liked to keep Arabella for another year.
Jimmy stared at his report card. He looked up at Chris as she passed by and said, "I thought I was gettin' you."
He sat for a while with his head resting heavily on the heel of his hand, staring off glumly.
Chris pursed her lips. "Oh," she thought. "I shouldn't have teased him about getting me next year."
A few of the children had brought her presents. Irene gave her a very sentimental card, delivering it on Chris's side of the big desk. Irene lingered next to Chris. She wanted Chris to kiss her. Chris did, and said, "Oh, Irene, thank you!"
Ashley offered her present. It was a sprig of flowering privet that she must have broken off a hedge on her way to school that morning. Ashley delivered it from the other side of the desk. She was afraid of being kissed. "Oh, Ashley, thank you! That's very nice." Ashley, lips fastened tight, slowly backed away and sat down among her classmates.
Chris had told them they could bring in records. "But no Beastie Boys," she'd added. They had put on a record and had hopped up to sit on the counter by the window. Now they sat there, legs dangling, their arms around each other's shoulders, swaying in concert, and singing along to a song called "Talk Dirty to Me," which in this setting seemed innocent enough. Chris joined them for a moment. Wrists cocked and eyebrows raised, she danced out across the carpet. She stopped. Ashley was the only one not sitting on the counter. She was standing off to one side, watching her classmates. Chris went to her. "You want to hop on the end there, Ashley?"
Ashley shook her head, black hair swaying across her cheeks. "I don't know the words."
Eventually, Ashley changed her mind. Then the whole class was sitting in a row on the counter. Chris leaned against the jamb of the inner doorway, arms folded on her chest, and gazed across the deskless room at her class, watching them sway to their music in front of the vandalized, half-opaque windows. "I'm going to remember them this way," Chris thought.
Looking at them gave her a familiar empty feeling in her stomach. She heard herself thinking, once again, "My chicks are leaving me." But most of them would do just fine, she thought. Judith, sitting on the windowsill, looked beautiful. Chris hoped that Judith wouldn't meet too many handsome men too soon. She still felt uneasy about Pedro. "I guess the neighborhood is what scares me, and the grandmother. I mean, I know she takes care of him as best she can and she loves him and that's nice, but she's old. I mean, you can't expect an older woman to do discipline and all this stuff that goes along with bringing up an adolescent. Pedro's immature right now." She worried about Jimmy. But then again, Jimmy had given her a few tiny reassurances. First, a couple of days ago, he had asked for those math games, and then earlier today, Jimmy had come up to her and said, "You know, Mrs. Zajac, you didn't finish that book." Jimmy meant the last novel she had been reading aloud, the one about the children hiding in the museum. At least, she thought, Jimmy had not slept through all the hours he'd spent with her.
After a while their chorus line disbanded. Claude dozed in the sun, sitting in the chair that propped open the door to the playground, and Arnie did some handstands on the carpet in the mostly chairless room.
"Arnie, stop acting so crazy," said Chris.
"It's the last day of school," he said.
Chris fingered her gold necklace. "What can I say?"
The children were dismissed early. Soon the intercom said, "Bus one," and the usual commotion ensued, Claude scrambling for his bookbag, Chris crying out, "Wait! Margaret! Oh, well." That was all right. She had Margaret next year.
"Dick, I just want to say have a nice summer, okay? Everybody have a nice summer. Okay?"
Many voices called back to her from the hall, "Have a nice summer, Mrs. Zajac."
"I'm not," Claude said, looking up at her in the doorway. "I'm gonna have a great summer."
"Good, Claude."
"Lots of fishin'. Yup. Monday fishin', Tuesday fishin', Wednesday fishin'..."
"How about some readin'?" said Chris. She had to bite her tongue for the last time over Claude.
Chris stood at the door to the hall, watching the last of the bus riders vanish around the corner.
"Ohhh," she murmured after them. "I feel a little sad."
As usual, the walkers took a more leisurely farewell, but soon they were filing out the door to the playground. Chris put an arm around Judith's shoulder, but Chris, seeming suddenly shy, didn't try to kiss her, and Judith, who looked serene and happy, smiled and walked away. Chris followed her outside. A child from another class must have pulled a fire alarm. Over its bleating, Chris called, "Take care, you g
She stood outside, watching as her walkers got lost among the others. "Ahhh," she said. "I'm losing them back to their environment for a summer. It's sort of sad. Well." She walked back into the empty room with pursed lips, and made as if to busy herself at her desk. She muttered over Ashley's piece of privet, "This is from one of those hedges." She took up tissues. She sniffled, and took up more tissues. "Ahhhh. I feel bad about 'em. Some of them. Judith. Mainly her. Because I don't think I'm going to see her again." Chris went to the sink and started cleaning it, still sniffling, and then she looked up toward the door to the hall, and she smiled with wet eyes. "And then again..." she said aloud. Summer beckoned. She did some thinking about next year. She had a lot of work to do over the summer. She told herself that teaching sixth grade would be like starting a new life.
Al convened a farewell faculty meeting. He said, "I have to thank all of you for this year. It's the best year I had in twenty years." He didn't say why. Al was Al. He went on for a few minutes, and closed by saying, "But ... we had a year."
An hour later she was driving under the railroad bridge. She crossed the first canal, which marks the edge of the Flats. She probably wouldn't see this part of town again, or any of her walkers, until September. Within a few weeks this year's disappointments would begin to fade. Now they were still fresh. She thought about Robert. "He's my failure, I guess. Him and Clarence."
Even the most troubled children had attractive qualities for Chris. Even the most toughened, she always felt, wanted to please her and wanted her to like them, no matter how perversely they expressed it. She belonged among schoolchildren. They made her confront sorrow and injustice. They made her feel useful. Again this year, some had needed more help than she could provide. There were many problems that she hadn't solved. But it wasn't for lack of trying. She hadn't given up. She had run out of time.
* * *
Acknowledgments and Sources
My thanks above all to Christine Zajac and to her students and their parents. My thanks also to Billy Zajac, Mrs. Padden, Jimmy, Mary, and Peggy. I owe many thanks to Barry Werth and to Tim Barrett, George Counter, and Jim Newton. John Clark, Gail Furman, David Grosbeck, Blanca Ortiz, and Tommy Philpot were gracious and helpful, and so were many others in the Holyoke school system, especially my friends at Dean Vocational. For their help and kindness, my thanks to Al Laudato and Paul Mengle. Everyone at Kelly School was kind to me, and I wish to thank the staff, faculty, and administration, including: Elaine Baskin, Diana Brown, Carol Burke, Doris Cruz, Joanne Devine, Debbie Drugan, Laura Dupont, Larry Duprey, Roberta Duprey, David Edson, Mark Fournier, Victor Guevara, Millie Hannigan, Ellen Jackson, Liz Jazab, Mary Kane, Barbara Keane, Ellen Keefe, Joe Kendra, Peter Kennedy, Chris Leary, Nancy Logan, Candy Leydon, Mary Ann McDonough, Gwen Morrissey, Terry Mykytuk, Pat Petite, Pat Redfern, Marisol Rexasch, Mel Rivera, Lourdes Ruiz, and Linda Washington.
Stuart Dybek did a great deal of work on early drafts of my manuscript. Mark Kramer did heroic work on a late draft. Mike Rosenthal, Jonathan Harr, Fran, Nat, and Alice all listened ad nauseam and gave good advice. For counsel and encouragement, I have also to thank Benjamin Barnes, Ed Etheredge, Jon Jackson, John O'Brien, Tim Rivinus, Ginny Sullivan, and Sam Toperoff. My thanks to Georges Borchardt and to Larry Cooper, Sandy Goroff-Mailly, Bob Kempf, Steve Lewers, Austin Olney, Joe Kanon, John Sterling, and Barbara Williams.
A number of schoolteacher friends helped me, including Martha Batten, Elizabeth Cooney, Caren Dybek, Susan Etheredge, Margie Riddle, Faith Toperoff, and Joanne Wilson. Susan Todd and Sandy Warren suggested that I write about their occupation.
John Graiff helped me in innumerable ways. I am indebted as usual to Jamie Kilbreth, and irretrievably indebted, once again, to the very patient Richard Todd.
***
Of all the books about education that I read, my favorite is Schoolteacher by Dan C. Lortie (University of Chicago, 1975).
Larry Cuban's How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1980 (Longman, New York, 1984) is a fine and temperate examination of change and the lack of it inside classrooms.
For me, the best current survey of public schools is A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future by John I. Goodlad (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1984).
***
For the history of corporal punishment, I relied on an unpublished paper by David Rempel, provided by the author. The sociological study I refer to in that part of the book is Schoolteacher. I also used the following books:
Compayre, Gabriel. Compayre's History of Pedagogy. Translated by W. H. Payne. Heath and Co., Boston, 1886.
English Pedagogy, Old and New, 2nd ed. Brown and Gross, Hartford, 1876.
Monroe, Paul, ed. Cyclopedia of Education, vol. 5. Macmillan, New York, 1914.
A Pedagogue's Commonplace Book. Sought out and arranged by Edith Rowland. A. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1925.
***
Efrain Martinez lent me several books about Puerto Rico. He showed me around the island and reviewed parts of the manuscript. Victor Guevara was a wonderful guide to local Puerto Rican culture. I also relied on the following books and articles for the history of Irish immigration and for glimpses of Puerto Rican history and culture:
Berg, Ronald H. "The Socioeconomic Exploitation of Ethnicity on a Western Massachusetts Tobacco Farm." Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 3, November 1980.
Fitzpatrick, Joseph P. "Puerto Ricans in Perspective: The Meaning of Migration to the Mainland." International Migration Review, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 1968.
Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted, 2nd ed. Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston, 1973.
Lauria, Anthony, Jr. " 'Respeto,' 'Relajo,' and Interpersonal Relations in Puerto Rico." Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, April 1964.
Lopez, Adalberto, and James Petras, eds. Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans: Studies in History and Society. Schenkman Publishing, Cambridge, Mass., 1974.
Macisco, John J. "Assimilation of the Puerto Ricans on the Mainland." International Migration Review, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 1968.
Maldonado, Edwin. "Contract Labor and the Origins of Puerto Rican Communities in the United States." International Migration Review, vol. 13, no. 1, Spring 1979.
Maldonado, Rita M. "Why Puerto Ricans Migrated to the United States in 1947–73." Monthly Labor Review, September 1976.
Martinez, Antonio. Family and Migration: A Systems Analysis. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, February 1984.
Poblete, Renato. "Anomie and the Quest for Community: The Formation of Sects among the Puerto Ricans of New York." American Catholic Sociological Review, vol. 21 (1959), pp. 18–36.
Wagenheim, Kal. Puerto Rico, A Profile, 2nd ed. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1970.
Woodham-Smith, Cecil. The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849. Harper and Row, New York, 1962.
Young, Bruce M. New England Farmworkers' Council: Case Study of a Community Service Organization. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, May 1975.
***
Many people gave me tours of Holyoke, including Tim Barrett, Barry Werth, and Chris Zajac. Miguel Arce of the admirable organization Nueva Esperanza gave me a tour of residential South Holyoke. Tom McColgan explained the recent history and the inner workings of the local real estate market. The written history of Holyoke is scant. The history to which I refer in the text is Holyoke, Massachusetts: A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America by Constance McLaughlin Green (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1939). The Parish and the Hill, a novel by Mary Doyle Curran (Feminist Press of the City University of New York, 1986), offers a vivid and rather dour view of growing up Irish Catholic in old industrial Holyoke. Ella DiCarlo's Holyoke—Chicopee: A Perspective (Transcript-Telegram, Holyoke, 1982) was also useful. An interesting case study of religious controversy in Holyoke is Protestant and Catho
***
For information about the history of educational reform and for valuable advice, I am grateful to Robert Hampel and to Theodore Sizer. I am grateful to the historian Bill McFeeley for conversations about educational history. Lynn Cadwallader also gave good advice and lent me several books, including her doctoral dissertation, Nathaniel Topliff Allen, 1823–72: A Case Study in the Professionalization of Nineteenth Century Teaching (University of Massachusetts, February 1983). Al Rudnitzky of Smith College advised and encouraged me.
I found the following histories of education useful:
Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradiction of Economic Life. Basic Books, New York, 1976.
Button, H. Warren, and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. History of Education and Culture in America. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1983.